


White Blank Page

by eastie



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Clint is trying his best, F/M, Fem!Tony, Female Tony Stark, FrostIron - Freeform, Kidnapping, M/M, Mild torture, Thor is trying his best, endgame frostiron, lots of idiots in love, some stony
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-23 14:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 30,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11991951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eastie/pseuds/eastie
Summary: Thor brings Loki to live with the Avengers after a tweaked version of events in TDW, feeling that restrictions placed on his magic by the all father will prevent him from doing anything too bad.The rest of the Avengers, including Tony, disagree.But theres no arguing with gods, even if a certain Captain wholeheartedly disapproves of how they stare at a certain Iron-clad-Lady...





	1. Coffee

I'm kinda playing fast and loose with what's actually happened in the films here, set after The Dark World (which now takes place after Age of Ultron). Loki doesn't fake his death in this version of events and goes back with Thor to face the All-father.  
Also Clint doesn't have his family in this (sorry) and Bruce is just in India, because I love my green baby and couldn't send him away.

* * *

 

 

Antonia Stark was not in the best of moods, she had an idiot archer to thank for that.

"We need more milk."

She stared dumbstruck at Clint, then at the rest of the team, who had also rushed into the communal kitchen at the sound of red alert blasting through the tower. Almost every Avenger currently in residence was now standing irately in the kitchen. Steve and Natasha had charged in immediately after Tony, they were swiftly followed by Wanda. Everybody else was off doing their own thing, god knows where. Not for the first time Tony wished she was with Bruce in India, not dealing with this nonsense.

".. We're out." Clint gestured vaguely towards the fridge. "We've been out for days."

Tonys eyebrow twitched, "seriously Barton? This was your code red? I left my workshop for this?" She took some deep breaths and glanced at Steve before continuing, he looked a similar level of pissed, it almost made her happy for them to be on the same page about something for once. "You do realise this is why we have JARVIS?"

Clint shifted awkwardly.

"Well I mean we don't..."

"Don't what!" Tony snapped.

"Have JARVIS.. Anymore.."

As if to prove his point Vision phased into the room from the floor and surveyed the situation. Tony deflated, try as she might she hadn't been able to fully accept the loss of her AI, every time she saw vision, despite how much she actually liked the guy, it stung.

"That's hardly an excuse Agent Barton," Vision started, "FRIDAY has been installed and implemented, to great effect, for months now. She preforms all the tasks that JARVIS used to."

"Yeah, but I don't like her." Clint pouted defiantly.

Natasha rolled her eyes then turned and left the room, Wanda huffed and followed behind her.

"Oh ok well now it all makes sense," Tony started, "We get a red alert because Legolas has decided he can't ask the AI to get his milk, fine! I'll go out right now and buy your damn milk you ass."

"Tony..." Steve started.

"Oh are you kidding me Capsicle? All the crap you give me all the time and yet no stern words for Hunger Games over there?"

Steve looked at her and shifted, almost nervously.

"If you're going out.. Coffee?" He asked, lamely.

Tonys eyebrows twitched again.

"Oh sure, fine I'll go buy you some damn coffee as well." She threw her hands up in the air, "It's not like I have anything better to do with my goddamn time right now then be the errand girl. Better suit up, who knows what will happen to the world if the Avengers can't get their own damn breakfast."

"No, thats not what I..."

"Hey Vision, in any dire need of apples or something?" Tony cut him off. "Maybe some juice?"

"If you're actually going to go you may as well get me some doritos as well." Clint casually said before turning to leave.

Tony threw the nearest thing she could reach at him, it was an orange and she missed.

She glared over at Vision. "Well?" She demanded.

He just sighed and phased back down through the floor.

She huffed, "Oh whatever." Steve coughed behind her, gaining her attention again.

"Tony, I didn't mean for you to go get the coffee.. I was asking if you wanted to go.. get coffee, with me." He awkwardly scratched the back of his head, "I mean only if you're actually going out, neither of us seem to be up to much at the moment.."

Tony stared at him, "We're only not up to much because Clint-"

"Yeah I know, but erm, we may as well take a break?"

Tony stared some more.

"So.. coffee?" Steve tried again.

"You know what Cap?" She took a deep breath and forced a smile. "Sure."

 

\-----------

 

"That was stupid and irresponsible"

Clint looked up at an angry Steve towering over him, he snorted.

"Where's Tony?" He asked.

"Changing into something 'less lived in'"

"So, my plan worked, you're welcome! Now you won't die a virgin!" Clint laughed as Steve spluttered.

"First off we're just getting coffee together because I want to establish an actual friendship with her." Steve started, "secondly, there were much easier ways of getting us in the same room to talk!"

Clint raised an eyebrow, "you mean like you literally just going to talk to her, which you haven't done, ever."

Tony called out before Steve could respond. "Come on Cap! I know the perfect place for us to go, all the guys who work there wanna fuck me, I get free lattes, it's great!"

"Language!" Clint shouted back.

This time the orange actually hit him.

 

\-----------

 

Tony glanced at Steve over the rim of her coffee cup, they'd ended up diving into the first generic Starbucks as soon as Tony realised this was a terrible decision, which was after about the first five minutes of awkward silence.

"So Cap," Tony started, then paused. Usually she could talk for hours, to anyone about anything, but with Steve she was stumped. Getting under his skin was easy, forming plans of attack together was a piece of cake but any time they were alone together she couldn't think of a single thing she wanted to say to the good Captain.

"What's new with you?" She finished lamely.

"Oh, well not really much. Training and fighting. The usual."

Was it just her or did he sound annoyed?

"You seen kinda tense Cap."

"You're taking a while with your drink." He said curtly back.

She looked down, his cup was empty while hers was still half full. Why should that matter, he was the one who wanted to come out for coffee, Tony thought angrily. Screw this, what was even the point of trying, she couldn't even get coffee right when it came to the perfect Captain America.  
She pushed away from their table and stormed out of the shop.

Tony hailed a cab, it had been about a ten minute walk to get here but who even needed the hassle. She got into the back seat roughly the same time as she heard Steve calling her back inside the Starbucks.

"Tony you can't just," He started, "where are you even going?"

"Back to the tower to finish my suit upgrades, which is what I should have been doing all day today instead of baby sitting the star-spangled wonder boy." Tony tried to calm herself a bit. "Look, if you wanna come back with me you may as well get in."

"I'll walk. Thanks" Steve cooly replied.

"Suits me," She turned her attention to the cabbie. "Drive."

 

\-----------

 

It turns out that it actually would have been faster for her to walk, the taxi drove immediately into traffic and stayed there for half an hour. Tony used the time to try and calm down, a thing which was made much harder to do given that Steve had tried to call her three separate times already.

It was when Natasha rang that she actually picked up.

"Stark, where are you?" She asked seriously.

"Literally two minutes away, what's the situation?"

"You'll see, we just wanted to make sure you were actually coming back. Steves been home for almost half an hour."

Tony rolled her eyes. "Traffic." She muttered before hanging up.

Tony glanced out of the cab window, they were at a standstill. She threw a couple of bills at the driver before diving quickly out of the door and racing towards the tower, ignoring the drivers angry shouting around her. She glanced up at the towers top floors, it looked normal from the outside, no explosions anyway, but that didn't count for much given she didn't know what the threat actually was. There was something in Natashas tone that was just.. off.

She made in into the buildings private elevator in just under five minutes.

"FRIDAY, where is everyone?"

"Everybody is gathered in the main kitchen, Ms Stark."

Tony braced herself as the lift shot up, the only thing she had on had as a potential weapon was her watch which transformed into half a gauntlet, which she activated just as the doors opened with a 'ding' into the main living area.

She stepped cautiously out and made her way to the kitchen, she couldn't hear anything until..

"Please friends! See reason!"

Thor?

What was he doing here?

Tony burst into the kitchen and took in the sight before her. The team on one side of the breakfast bar, all with a defensive stance or weapons drawn and aimed, but not at Thor, who was standing on the other side of the bar with his arms raised in what Tony took to be an attempt the calm the others. No, the weapons were aimed at the man, or should she say god, casually stood behind the thunderer, leaning against the fridge.

"Friend Tony! Please allow me to explain the situation-" Thor started.

Loki cut him off.

"You're out of milk."


	2. Redemption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor has some explaining to do.

Tony wasn't sure if she'd ever seen Thor look quite this frantic in her life, she would have definitely found it funny any other time, however the whole Loki in her kitchen thing was kind of putting her on edge.

"FRIDAY, I assume the tower's on lockdown?" Tony cautiously asked, walking in front of the group towards Thor.

"Sure is Boss."

Tony smirked slightly at Loki's almost startled reaction to the disembodied voice in the room, but he quickly collected himself and so did she.

"So, what's exactly going on here buddy?" She asked Thor, trying not to simply stare at Loki. "I know I said you could all have guests over but I didn't think I had to clarify that as, y'know, not war criminals."

Thor winced at her words. "My friends I am indeed gravely sorry to cause to any distress at my sudden arrival, I promise there is no need for violence, Loki would not harm any of you."

Tony heard the distinct sound of Clint drawing back an arrow behind her.

"Again." Thor added on awkwardly.

"I think you better start explaining yourself." Steve said, stepping forward to stand next to Tony. "He's supposed to be in a prison, right? Why is he here?"

Thor looked almost relieved to actually explain, he took a deep breath and started to talk. As he spoke the group dropped their guard somewhat, everyone apart from Clint, who kept an arrow trained on a seemingly unbothered Loki. Tony started to edge round the counter slowly, trying to get a closer look at the god of lies but Steve not too subtly grabbed her wrist to stop her. They glared at each other as she pulled her hand away but she didn't bother trying to move closer to Loki again.

She looked back to Thor, who had finished his story, and realised she hadn't taken any of it in. Shit.

"Ok that's a lot of info to take in big guy," she bluffed, "just give me the general gist again?" She was sure she could feel Steve's disapproving stare burning into the side of her skull but he ignored him, he could rant at her later.

"My apologies Lady Stark, I shall try to be more brief," Thor said so sincerely it hurt her to listen to it, he was clearly having a hard enough time without her not paying attention properly to him.

"Loki redeemed himself in the eyes of our father when he joined me on a mighty quest, he almost died twice saving both me and my," Thor fumbled for the right word, "friend, Jane. He aided me in defeating the Dark Elves who sought to destroy all the realms, their leader Malekith was defeated by his hand, as was his servant, Algrim. My father wishes for Loki to stay here with you, my shield brothers, to continue on his path of redemption, learn to be a hero so to speak."

Tony took it all in, looking over Loki as she did so, he cringed at Thor's choice of words but stared challengingly back at her.

"Thats a great story but a few things don't quite add up." Natasha's smooth voice cut in. "Why would Loki help you in the first place?"

As Thor opened his mouth to reply Loki got there first.

"The Elves killed our mother." He stated harshly. "I wanted my revenge."

Well, that makes sense. Tony briefly thought of her own parents then, they both died together in suspicious circumstances, no concrete evidence to prove they had been murdered though... but if they had.. a flash of Maria Starks smile came to her mind. Yeah, Loki's motive made perfect sense, she'd want revenge too.

"Why bring Loki here?" Vision spoke up. "If he has redeemed himself to your father then why is he not simply back on Asgard as a free man, learning to "be a hero" there?"

"Because the All-Father is not a fool," Loki answered again. "One good deed is not enough to set me free in his own realm."

Tony caught the gist straight away.

"So you're here on what, a trail run? Make sure you don't kill any humans before moving on up to the big leagues and not killing any actual, important people?"

Thor spluttered reassurances that of course that wasn't the case, but one look at Loki's smirk and she knew she was on the money.

"Loki could not kill even if he wanted to." Thor stated loudly, clearly getting slightly agitated. "My father has prevented him from doing so by taking his magic."

That silenced the room for a few minutes.

"That being said, Thor, we simply can't keep a criminal here." Steve placed his hand on Thor's shoulder. "He has to go somewhere else."

"Well..." Tony started, "lets not be too hasty there Cap."

Steve looked surprised. "Tony, you can't be serious."

"Look. No matter what happens right now, Loki is basically a free man, we have no say in that, at all. Sure we could slap him in irons if we wanted to but I have no doubt in my mind either he would escape or we'd have do deal with the wrath of Asgard, so what's the point? He's here on Earth to stay so we may as well have him stay somewhere where we can actually watch him, right?" She finished.

Steve looked furious, Clint looked murderous.

"He's responsible for the death of hundreds! And you want him to stay here?" Steve all but shouted at her.

"Of course I don't want him here!" She snapped back. "I'm saying this is the most logical option we have, we can't just release him into the wild!"

"Stark is right." For the first time Wanda spoke up, "it would be better to keep him where we can guard him."

Natasha shot Clint an apologetic look. "I agree."

"As do I." Vision added.

Clint stormed out the room, Tony felt a pang in her chest as she watched him go, she'd make it up to him at some point she decided, he always went crazy for new arrow designs, she'd make him some ASAP.

Steve sighed heavily.

"Fine, Loki stays."

 

\-----------

 

As Tony had given each of the team their own individual living space inside the tower, she decided the best place for Loki to go would be with Thor. It worked out pretty well since she'd originally put him and Bruce together on the same level and with Brucie gone it left plenty of space for tall, dark and murderous.

"You have your own kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, all that jazz," she told an unimpressed Loki as she lead him and Thor through the tower. "There's communal spaces as well, a gym and a pool. Oh and a bar."

"Finally going to get me that drink, Stark?" Loki asked her, voice dripping with contempt.

"Maybe a drink of bleach if thats gonna be your tone Princess." Tony smiled back.

Loki simply narrowed his eyes in response.

"Tony," Thor spoke gravely, "I truly thank you for allowing my brother to stay."

"Anything for you blondie," Tony sighed, "I would go talk to Clint when you get the chance though, I think he's a bit upset."

"Of course."

"And hey, don't be so miserable!" Tony elbowed him, "I haven't seen you in forever, we all get to hang out! Movie nights and pop tarts galore." She smirked up at him as he started to smile back. "I can even arrange to have Jane flown over as well, if you want to catch up with your friend?"

Thor blushed and Loki rolled his eyes.

Tony lead them over to one of the private elevators, "Ok well, we're on floor six now and you guys are floor five, floors one to four are where the rest of the gang sleep so stay clear unless you have an invite," She stared pointedly at Loki before continuing. "You have free reign of everywhere else, If you want to get to the lower part of the tower you have to use the main elevator not the private one but I don't see why you would need to since you can just, y'know, fly. Any questions?"

Thor glanced between her and the elevator looking slightly lost.

"Also FRIDAY can help you out with anything, she's just like JARVIS." They stood together awkwardly for a bit. "Well I'll leave you to it then. See you later Thor." She smiled and pushed the button for the duo then wandered back through the tower. Man she really needed a drink, she smiled to herself, there was a bottle of whiskey in the workshop with her name on it.

 

\-----------

 

Having Loki around hadn't really changed things in the way Tony expected it would, if she were honest with herself they hadn't really changed at all.

Of course for the first couple of weeks everyone was on constant high alert. Wanda almost magicked Steve into the ceiling when he accidentally snuck up behind her in the training room, which was hilarious until Steve in turn launched his actual shield at Tony when her laughing startled him. Luckily she was training with her suit on at the time, so despite the shield lodging itself in her chest and throwing her into the wall, she was relatively unhurt. Didn't stop Rogers apologising endlessly every time her saw her though, she took to avoiding him just so she didn't have to see his pathetic puppy dog look every time he caught her eye.

But that all slowly wore off as it became more and more apparent to everybody that Loki simply wasn't planning on leaving his room. Things went on as they always had, every so often a few or all of the team getting called out for some standard Avenging. Tony basically lived in her workshop for the rest of the time, only leaving when the "Three days no sleep protocol" kicked in and FRIDAY endlessly started badgering her to go to bed, a protocol Pepper had installed after she found Tony tinkering with a very volatile explosive while half asleep.

It was about a month or so into Loki's stay that Tony actually saw him again.

Emerging from her workshop exhausted and covered in grime and oil, she made her way over to the kitchen still furiously typing equations into a StarkPad and collapsed at the breakfast bar.

"Well well, doesn't someone look disgusting."

"Baby, I look beautiful." Tony replied before actually registering who had spoken, she looked up sharply to see Loki casually smirking down at her.

She took in his surprisingly casual appearance, a loose fitting back top and some dark grey sweatpants, when he arrived with Thor they were both wearing their traditional leathers and she sure didn't see him with a suitcase.

"Been shopping?" She asked, indicting his outfit.

"As if I would spend money on such garb." He scowled, "Thor informed me this was what you mortals like to wear casually." He glanced disdainfully at the sleeve of his top then at her.

"So did you steal them?" Tony made her way over to the fridge and pulled out some leftovers. "Want some pizza?"

Loki quirked an eyebrow at her, his clothes started shimmering and transformed back into his Asgardian wear. "I don't need to steal." He smirked again at Tonys shocked expression, making his way over to her side to take a slice of the offered pizza.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You said the All Father took your magic."

"I never said that."

He was right, she realised with chill.

Thor said it.

She was suddenly very aware of how close he was to her.

"So," Tony started backing away, "why does Thor think you're not going to kill us all again?"

"Because I'm not." Loki stepped back into her space again, "the All Father could not just simply take my magical ability. There are however, restrictions"

Tony stood her ground this time, curiosity taking over. "So you just can't use magic to kill?"

Loki nodded.

"I can already see loopholes there." There wasn't any danger in the statement, if she could see them then Loki certainly could as well.

He grinned at her in response, it was less predatory than his usual smile but it still made Tony shift uncomfortably. They stared at each other for a few strange moments, just as Loki opened his mouth to speak again, someone else's voice broke in.

"Get away from her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a cliff hanger? I wasn't sure where to leave this chapter off so here we are haha  
> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave me any constructive feedback! This is my first ever fic and I'm blown away by how nice everyone has been so far!


	3. Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony needs some help

Steve stood facing them, his fists clenched and expression stormy. 

Loki glanced at him, looking unimpressed as ever. "We're talking."

"Not anymore you aren't," Steve stormed over and squaring up to Loki. "I said back away."

Loki smiled at him coldly before turning his attention back to Tony, "another time perhaps." He said, he held her gaze for a few moments before he turned and swept out of the room.

"Are you ok?" Steve turned to her.

"Yeah Cap, totally fine." She answered, watching Loki leave. "We really were just talking, pretty casual, nothing life threatening, at ease soldier." She turned and gave him a grin.

"You shouldn't have been here alone with him." Steve said sternly, her grin vanished. "Anything could have happened."

Tony started to feel irritated. "Excuse me? I've faced off with Loki more times than you have and been fine."

"You mean when he threw you out of a window or do you mean when he let us capture him?" Steve shot back instantly. "Face it Tony, you don't have your suit and-"

"And what Rogers?" She cut in furiously. "I don't always need my suit to kick someones ass."

"Yes. You do." 

Tony fought her first instinct of shooting him a snarky comment and also her second one of simply slapping his stupid, patriotic face and pushed past him instead, marching to her room for a shower.

I didn't have the suit infiltrating Killian's base, she thought angrily. I didn't have the suit in the cave. 

She shuddered and turned the water temperature up. 

I don't need the suit. I'm enough without it. 

She put a hand to the circular lump of scar tissue on her chest, it wasn't pretty to look at but it beat the arc reactor by miles. Screw Steve, she got everywhere on her own, anyone can be injected with a serum. Nobody else could be her.

 

\-----------

 

"You can kick Rogers star spangled ass, right?"

Natasha grinned at her. "Of course."

"Ok. Teach me how." 

 

\-----------

 

Intense training with Natasha was.. intense. Tony was covered head to toe in bruises and cuts for weeks and she still didn't feel like she was getting anywhere, that didn't stop her from doing it though, Tony Stark was nothing if not persistent. 

"OK, what did we learn this time?" Natasha asked after she had flipped Tony over her shoulder onto the floor for the seventh time that day.

"That I suck at this." Tony wheezed back. 

"No. You almost had me." 

Tony groaned and sat up, Natasha handed her a water bottle and sat down next to her. 

"Tony, you fight fine, you fight better in the suit." She looked her up and down, "what's this really about?" 

"I won't always have the suit." Tony grumbled, she glanced back at 'Tasha, she knows she doesn't have to give much away for the spy to know exactly what she's worried about.

"Do you think I'm useless?" Natasha looked at her firmly. "Or Clint? What about Bruce when he isn't the Hulk?"

"You know I don't." Tony sighed, "and I know where you're going with this."

They stared each other down for a bit before they both broke into grins.

"Thanks."

"Anytime."

"How sweet." Loki materialised in front of them, Tony glanced to her side to see Natasha's reaction at Loki's obvious use of magic, as far as she could tell the super spy wasn't shocked at all. Typical. 

"And what brings the Prince of Darkness to our lil-ol sweat pit?" Tony rolled her head to the side and stared up at the trickster. "I can't speak for 'Tasha but I'm not exactly in the mood to be dealing with your shit right now."

"I came to train." Loki moved away from them to examine a punching bag, it was a one Tony had made especially for Steve, built to withstand his super punches. She couldn't be bothered with constantly replacing the ones he broke so she took matters into her own hands. "Thor will be here soon to join me." 

"Some brotherly bonding time?" She asked.

"Hardly." He all but snarled in reply.

Natasha stood up and stretched. "Well as fun as it would be to watch Thor kick you around the tower." She said before just.. walking out of the room. Tony stared after her, slightly uneasy at being left alone with Loki again. 

She watching him pace around the room, examining various items of equipment before he stopped in front of the treadmill, his brow creased slightly.

"FRIDAY, what is this machine?" He asked the room.

Tony gaped at him.

"That is a treadmill, Mr Liesmith, you run on them." FRIDAYS smooth voice answered him.

Tony gaped at the room in general.

"Thank you FRIDAY."

"Anytime, Mr Liesmith."

"What the fuck!" Loki turned to look at her as she gestured madly around, looking a bit taken aback. "You just talked to FRIDAY? Are you kidding me?"

Loki genuinely looked a bit unsure of himself before he answered. "You said she could help with anything, how else will I gain her assistance if I don't ask?"

Tony just stared at him some more.

"She's been very useful to me." Loki tried again. "Or did you only intend for Thor to speak to her?" He narrowed his eyes at her and crossed his arms.

Tony couldn't help herself, she burst out laughing, actual full on, rolling onto her back, laughter. She abruptly stopped however when Loki suddenly crossed the room and stepped on her chest, pinning her down. The weight wasn't exactly crushing but this still wasn't what she would call an ideal situation. 

"Do not laugh at me." Loki snarled down at her, slowly applying more pressure.

"I wasn't." She shot back.

Loki's brow furrowed slightly in confusion and he lifted some of his weight slightly. "Then what-"

"BROTHER." Thor suddenly shouted into the room. Loki stepped off her immediately.

"What is the meaning of this?" Thor stormed over to them.

"Training!" Tony coughed out, Thor stopped and stared at her in confusion. "I mean, we're in the training room, what did you think was going on?"

Thor looked between them both, slightly suspicious. "Truly?"

"Of course, brother." Loki offered his hand to Tony, she took it and he yanked her roughly upright, she stumbled slightly until he steadied her. "I was assisting Lady Stark in her hand to hand combat skills."

Thor didn't exactly look convinced, but Tony didn't care, she was out of there.

"Well I think I'm done for the day, I'll let you two get on with it." She headed for the door. "Don't hold back Thor! I'm rooting for you big guy!" 

Thor beamed at her while Loki scowled, she rolled her eyes at both of them before leaving and making her way over to the pool.

When she got there Tony was surprised to find Clint floating lazily in the water. She had barely seen him outside of missions, the only real time was when she gave him a new holster of arrows and all she'd gotten in return was a cool, "thanks."

She knew he was mad at her for making the case for Loki to stay and she honestly couldn't blame him. Still though, she missed having him around.

"Hey Legolas," she said brightly, taking her top and shorts off before slipping into the water to join him. "Not gonna lie, pretty pissed I'm not getting the pool to myself here, honestly how am I supposed to relax now?" 

Clint floated past her, for a few moments Tony thought he was going to just ignore her. "You look more beat up then angry to me."

"Yeah well, 'Tasha doesn't pull her punches." 

Clint indicated towards her chest, she glanced down and saw a large, angry bruise already starting to form where Loki's boot had been. "Remind me not to get on her bad side then, that looks nasty."

Tony grimaced and started to swim away, she didn't want to lie to Clint but she also didn't want to bring up Loki when he'd just started speaking to her in full sentences again. She felt him grab hold of her wrist and pull her gently back towards him. "Tony..." He said quietly still staring at the bruise. "I'm your friend, you can talk to me."

Her eyes widened in surprise, taken back by the sincerity in Clint's voice, she wasn't used to seeing this side of the archer, together they were usually the smart asses of the team, she wasn't sure if she could deal with such a serious moment between them, so she splashed him instead.

He burst out laughing and dunked her under the water.

"Geez Barton," she spluttered as she resurfaced. "Most men at least take me out to dinner before getting me we-"

"Do NOT finish that sentence!" Clint splashed her again, "I do not need the mental images."

"Yeah, yeah, I know you dream of me." Tony laughed.

They did some laps of the pool together, joking and laughing the whole time until Tony couldn't ignore the tight pain in her chest anymore and called it a night. She gathered up her clothes and headed back to her room. 

Where she found Loki waiting for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if any of you have picked up but I'm actually British! I'm trying really hard to write "American" (ass instead of arse, sweatpants instead of joggers kinda thing) but I feel like I may slip up from time to time so sorry if I do!  
> I really hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	4. Healed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Tony talk.

Tony stared in shock at the God currently standing in her bedroom, Loki chuckled under his breath and moved towards her.

"Surprised to see-" 

"No." Tony abruptly cut him off, "I don't care, its been a long day, how'd you get in here?"

Loki paused for a moment, looking slightly irritated, before recovering. "Well I simply-"

"Let me guess." Tony interrupted again, crossing her arms. "Magic. Thats just great, good for you, now you can magic away again, I want to sleep."

Loki narrowed his eyes at her and crossed his arms, Tony remained unimpressed.

"Oh play another tune, keep squinting like that and people will just think you have strabismus." 

"Some would not consider it wise to taunt me." 

"Bite me."

Loki smirked and looked her up and down. "Tempting, but not tonight Stark." 

That startled Tony a bit, suddenly very aware she was only in her wet underclothes. She pushed past Loki and grabbed an old hoodie from her wardrobe, Rhodey had lent it to her years ago after helping her stumble home drunk one night after she complained she was cold and she'd just sorta kept it since.

"You lied to Thor for me." Loki's said from behind her. 

"Actually I lied to Thor for me." She pulled the hoodie over her head, "I couldn't be bothered to deal with rebuilding the gym after he'd smashed you through it." 

She turned to face Loki, he was giving her a look that said he very much doubted her story. In truth she wasn't actually sure what made her lie, maybe she just didn't want to see anyone get in trouble over a misunderstanding, speaking of..

"I really wasn't laughing at you, you know." Tony ran a hand through her short hair and ruffled it. "No one ever speaks to FRIDAY, not really. She freaks Cap and Thor out, the spies are too cool to need her help and I think she just makes vision uncomfortable... Even I spoke more to JARVIS, I guess I just thought it was funny that you of all people actually use her." 

"Who is JARVIS?" Loki questioned. 

"Just an old friend." Tony mumbled in reply, there was a pause where they both just stared at each other, it felt oddly comfortable, which then made Tony uncomfortable.

"So, Loki-Dokes," she sat down on the edge of her bed and grinned up at him, "two options here, you're either gonna poof away or explain the magic loopholes to me."

Loki raised an eyebrow at her, then vanished.

Lying back in bed, Tony sighed, "FRIDAY, is there anything we can actually do to stop the teleporting?" 

Loki suddenly reappeared in her room again, holding a slightly glowing stone.

"Jesus! Stop it!" Tony shouted at the same time FRIDAY replied with, "I don't think so Boss."

Loki rolled his eyes and made his way over to her, starting to crush up the rock as he did, tony edged away from him, crawling backwards up the bed.

"Don't be a child." Loki sighed irritably. "I'm not going to harm you."

"What's that thing?" 

"It's a healing stone." Loki finished crushing it up and held it over her chest, Tony instinctively crossed her arms over herself and tried to roll away, she was always going to be on high alert when it came to anybody going near her chest, even without the arc reactor she always panicked if someone targeted her there. 

Loki grabbed her with a huff and pulled her roughly back, sprinkling the rock dust over her body as he did, once all of it had settled he let her go and stood back raising his hands in a placative gesture. Tony scrambled immediately backwards up the bed when he let her go, breathing heavily. 

"What did you do to me?" She demanded.

"I healed you. It was a healing stone." 

"Don't do that again!"

"You don't want me to heal you again?" Loki frowned at her. "You're being very ungrateful."

"So I have to be grateful that you just grabbed me and threw some alien crap on me?" Tony fumed and grabbed her chest again, trying to slow her breathing down, Loki followed her hands movement with a considering look. "Will you just get out."

"Don't you want to know the limitations of my magical ability?" Loki asked after a pause, he sounded almost hopeful.

"You can't use your magic to directly hurt anybody, I'm actually guessing you just can't use magic on people at all since you had to use some glowy rock thing to do whatever you did-"

"Heal you."

"-Instead of doing it directly." Tony paused. "So, you could stab someone but not kill them with magic right?

Loki looked at her approvingly. "Indeed."

"So could you kill someone with a knife you made magically or..?"

"I don't know." Loki gave her a considering look then grinned. "Would you like me to try?" 

"Careful there, your crazy is showing." Tony rubbed her chest again, realising for the first time that it wasn't actually hurting her anymore. She pulled the hoodie off and stared in shock, not only were all the bruises and cuts from training gone, including the one Loki had given her, but her lump of arc reactor scar had gone as well.

He smirked at her triumphantly. "I told you. Healed."

"Get out." Tony whispered.

"What?"

"I said get out!" Tony shouted.

Giving her a cold look, Loki left. It wasn't until a few hours had passed and she had calmed down that Tony realised he had actually used the door.

 

\-----------

 

Tony didn't come out of her workshop for almost two weeks, she wasn't actually working so much as drinking herself into a stupor so FRIDAY never bothered with the "no sleep protocol" although she did occasionally check in to make sure she was eating.

Staring at her chest over and over in the mirror Tony tried to work out what was actually wrong with her. She refused calls from Pepper and Rhodey, she refused all attempted communication from her team, Vision phased in from the ceiling at one point but left as soon as she drunkenly asked him why he couldn't just be JARVIS.

Steve came down to find her eventually. Knocking politely on the workshop door at first before simply breaking it down when Tony refused to answer.

"You know Cap," Tony slurred, "usually a locked door doesn't mean come in."

"You're drunk." Steve scowled.

"You're perceptive." 

"Tony, you can't just sit down here and ignore your responsibilities." Steve folded his arms over his chest and opened his mouth to berate her some more before pausing. "Where did your scar go?"

"What scar?" Tony grumbled.

"You had a scar on your chest, where your reactor used to be."

"Been staring at my chest a lot, huh Capsicle?" Tony leered at him.

Predictably, Steve blushed and looked everywhere but at her, sex was an easy weapon for Tony to use against him, if she made him uncomfortable enough he'd always leave her alone. 

"Tony you need to sober up." Steve tried.

"Maybe you need to sober down." She pouted in reply.

"That's not.. That doesn't even make sense!" Steve was clearly getting frustrated, Tony felt a small sense of satisfaction at that. "Tony come on, I'm taking you to bed."

"Kinky." Tony practically purred, she sauntered drunkenly over to the super soldier, "and what are you planning on doing with me in bed, Rogers?" 

Steve was now an alarming shade of red. "T-That's not what I meant."

Grinning Tony got closer, she planned on pushing him further, usually Steve would have run a mile by now, when she suddenly tripped over an empty whiskey bottle and crash landed onto the floor.

"Tony!" Steve reached down to pull her up.

She sighed.

"Ok, fine. Take me to bed."

 

\-----------

 

Tony woke up the next day, dragged herself to the kitchen, drank three mugs of coffee then promptly fell back asleep on a couch in the den.

When she woke up again that evening someone had put a glass of water next to her and covered her in a thick green blanket, Tony drank the water and snuggled the blanket more tightly around her, it had a oddly pleasant spicy smell that she breathed in deeply before drifting off again.

The next time she woke up it was because of a siren blaring through the tower and Steve's voice shouting, "Avengers assemble!" through the speaker system. 

Tony tripped over herself scrambling to get up, she sprinted over to the nearest elevator. "FRIDAY get the suit ready!" 

 

\-----------

 

"Tony are you still hungover? Concentrate!" Steve's voice echoed in her helmets earpiece, she ignored him and pulled herself out of the side of the building she had just been thrown into. 

"FRIDAY, what are we dealing with here?"

"Seems to be AI, not as developed as me of course."

Tony watched as a dozen flying robots circled the team in the street below. "Why are they wearing capes? What robot needs a cape?" She grumbled, "any weaknesses detected?" 

"Scanning now."

"That'a girl, keep me updated." Tony jetted back into the fray, shooting two of the robots with her repulser beams as she went. The 'bots had just suddenly appeared in the city, they didn't seem to have any other goal than destroying anything in their path. Steve and Natasha were holding their own against three on the ground, Wanda and Thor were dealing with five others with Clint sniping from a nearby rooftop, Vision was at home on Loki-sitting duty, which left four for Tony. Nothing she couldn't handle.

Two bots darted towards her, she dodged out of the way straight into the range of a third, it tried to grab onto her with one hand and shoot at her with the other, they seemed to be firing lightning out of their gauntlets, Tony span away from its grip just to be grabbed by the forth bot, which surged electricity straight into her suit before letting her go. She had built her suits to be able to absorb and redistribute electricity, but there was only so much they could take.

"Damage?" Tony demanded, flying upwards while the robots gave chase.

"Only cosmetic at the moment Boss, although your chest plate has seen better days."

"Great. Any weaknesses detected yet?"

"Still working on it." 

Swooping sharply downwards towards the ground she tried to see how the team was doing, the only one of them doing any real damage at the moment was Thor, who was hammering the bots over and over until their metal plating gave in. As she flew past she saw one of the robots Thor was smashing had its cape torn away, revealing a jet pack like device fixed onto its back.

"Hey guys!" She shouted into the comms. "They have jets under the capes, take them out and they can't fly anymore, aim for the middle of the back!"

"Got it!" Clint and Natasha both replied, everyone else seemed to have heard too since they all changed their attack pattern. Tony turned back around to fire at the bots pursuing her only to find there was seven of them chasing her now instead of four.

"Erm guys, did somebody lose their robo-buddy?" Five of the bots now in pursuit shot electric bolts at her at the same time, her helmet display flickered and she felt herself lose altitude temporarily. 

"Shit. Guys I need some back up here." No one was responding.

"Communicators fried Boss."

"Oh, well that's fun." Tony glanced back again to see all the remaining robots now pursuing her, nine of them in total now. Shit. She could see the team on the ground staring up at her, unable to help. Thor took off after them but it would take him a minute or two to catch up. The robots surrounded her at all sides and from below, the only place for her to go was up, she spun as she went, shooting blast after blast at the robots with seemingly no effect. The bots all took perfectly synchronised aim at her and fired. The electricity surged through her suit, short circuiting her display. 

She started to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a delay getting this chapter out since I went on holiday last week, sorry! As always I hope you enjoy! <3


	5. Hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's hurt, Steve's angry

Tony tried not to panic, there was no Hulk to catch her this time but Thor definitely would.

She was still falling.

Without her HUD working she could barely see, she could only feel herself spinning more and more out of control.

Thor would catch her, any minute now.

After what felt like forever she felt Thor grab her arm from behind, she roughly jerked with the sudden motion and cried out as a loud pop echoed around her suit. The sudden loss of feeling in her right arm confirmed her shoulder had been dislocated. It could always be worse, she thought to herself, much worse.

"Thanks for getting me buddy." Tony moved her head around to try and see Thor, but only saw a blank metal face staring back at her.

Before she had time to register the robot holding her she was suddenly jerked downwards as another one grabbed her leg. Tony flailed and kicked out as much as she could but two more of the robots latched onto her, grabbing her other arm and leg. There was a pause before all four of the bots started tearing into her armour, roughly pulling bits off. One of the robots tore off her helmet and she could finally get a good look around at the situation.

They were still miles off the ground, she saw Thor above her fighting two of the bots, that left three of them unaccounted for, she hoped that meant Thor had already destroyed them. Tony cried out again when a bot roughly punched into her stomach, denting her armour inwards and cutting into her skin. 

"THOR!" She shouted desperately. 

The God of Thunder looked around wildly before locking eyes with her, he tried to manoeuvre around his opponents to get to her but the robots kept blocking him.

"Fear not Tony! The others have called for aid!" Thor sounded like he was trying to be comforting but the panic she could clearly see in his eyes was ruining the effect. 

All of a sudden she felt another weight wrap itself around her side, before she could even utter an "oh crap" she was suddenly staring up at the ceiling of her workshop. Something was pushing her on her injured side, she instinctively rolled away then regretted it as she fell off one her workbenches and straight onto the floor.

"Stay still you idiot." Came the slightly panicked voice beside her.

"Loki?" Tony said incredulously. "What's happening? Where's the team? Where are the death bots?" Tony tried to get up but she couldn't move, she suit was too battered, none of the joints were responding anymore with most of the metal either being ripped away or crushed.

"I teleported you here after Captain Rogers called for the assistance of Vision and I realised he wouldn't get to you in time. I have no idea what has happened to your team or your attackers." Loki hovered over her. "Stay very still, you're injured."

That was an understatement, Tony thought dryly, with every breath she could feel different bits of metal stabbing into her body, she was starting to feel lightheaded. "Can you magic the suit off me?" She asked.

Loki furrowed his brow in concentration. "No."

"Why not?" Tony exclaimed, desperate. "You teleported me here just fine."

"I can't use my magical ability directly on anybody, remember? I teleported the suit here," Loki explained, "you just happened to be inside it. If I try to teleport it off you you'll just go wherever I send it as well." 

"Great." Tony took a few deep breaths. "Ok I need you to get me out of this, I'll talk you through it, it'll be easy. Ok?" 

Loki nodded solemnly at her, looking as unsure as she felt and they began.

 

\-----------

 

About half an hour later the team burst into the workshop to find Loki halfway through carefully peeling bits of her armour off her stomach. Clint and Tasha ran over and knelt down immediately beside her to help with Vision following closely behind them, Steve and Thor stayed back, both aware that they wouldn't be able to do much and Wanda hovered somewhere in between, looking unsure of what to do.

"Tony, you look like hell." Clint grunted.

Tony turned to scowl at the archer, as soon as she had turned towards him Natasha popped her shoulder suddenly back into place, ignoring Tonys scream she then turned to Loki. 

"Vision will be able to get the rest of her armour off." Tasha cooly told him, he immediately stepped away from her side as Vision swept over in his place and using the mind gem, started carefully lasering off the rest of her suit.

Once Tony was free from her suit Clint helped pull her upright and Natasha carefully inspected her for injuries. 

"You might need a stitch or two on your stomach. I'll call the Doctor."

All Tony had the energy to do was nod, then she promptly passed out.

 

\-----------

 

Tony woke up hours later in a bed in the tower med room. Thor was sat on one side of her and Steve on the other, both glaring daggers at the other, neither seemed to have noticed she was awake yet.

"My brother provided us with aid." Thor growled lowly.

"He was supposed to stay in the tower." Steve snapped back.

Tony rolled her eyes, typical Cap, he'd have probably rather she'd died then anybody break protocol. 

"Jeeze Rogers." She groaned. "It almost sounds like you're mad at him for the rescue."

"Tony!" Both mens faces snapped down to look at her, Thor looking relieved and Steve concerned.

"I am truly relieved to see you well and recovering my friend." Thor beamed at her, he looked away guiltily before continuing. "I'm truly sorry I could not help you more."

"You did all you could do Point-Break." She smiled back at him reassuringly. "I'm guessing the robots are all smashed to hell now right?"

Thor and Steve exchanged uneasy glances. 

"Actually Tony," Steve started, "they gave up as soon as you vanished. Thor and Vision destroyed a couple but..."

"So I was the target." Tony mulled the information over, it wasn't anything Earth shattering to her, she had a lot of enemies, she was attacked every other week. It was just the thought of having to plan for another potential attack that irked her, she could use that time on a million other important things instead of focusing on random killer robots. "Where's Loki?"

Steve's face immediately turned stormy. "He's under house arrest, he's confined to his room."

"That's a joke right?" Tony laughed. "Are you actually being serious? You're trying to confine a magical god to his room? Why? Because he saved me?"

"I'm not trying, he's in there." Steve ground out.

"If he is there it's because he wants to be, he can teleport remember?"

"You don't seem shocked that he can do that?" Steve narrowed his eyes. "Especially after he," Steve gestured towards Thor, "said he couldn't use magic?"

Thor had the decency to look abashed, Tony was just feeling her usual sense of annoyance every time Steve spoke.

"I've known for a while that he could use magic, Tasha knows as well by the way. It's not really a big deal."

"Not a big deal?!" Steve shouted standing up and starting to pace the room. "Tony are you insane? How could you know this and not tell anybody?" Steve suddenly stopped his pacing and looked her over incredulously. 

"Your scar." He said coldly. "That's why it's gone, you asked him to get rid of it for you." 

"What? You have no idea what you're talking about Rogers." Tony shot back just as coldly, her hand instinctively going to her chest to rest over.. nothing.

"Oh I think I do!" Steve raged. "You're willing to put the whole team at risk, keeping secrets for a monster, so you can have a little cosmetic surgery."

"Is that what you think!?" Tony shouted, she tried to get out of the bed but Thor held her gently but firmly down.

"Yes! That is what I think!" Steve shouted back. "What was it? Not getting enough guys back to the tower with it so you thought you'd just-"

"ENOUGH." Thor cut in, also standing up and squaring up to Steve. "Tony has done nothing to earn your ire, nor has my brother. If he wanted to hurt us he would've done so by now, all he has done thus far is stay out of the way and save Tony's life."

"He lied to us!"

"No he didn't." Tony said quietly, glaring up at Steve. "Loki never said anything about his powers, Thor did." 

"Well then he lied to you." Steve tried, turning back to Thor.

"Nay, it was my misunderstanding of the All Father's ruling, Loki never lied to me about his powers."

Steve looked exasperatingly back and forth between the two of them.

"Fine!" He said, throwing his arms up in the air. 

An awkward silence filled the room.

"Well if you boys wouldn't mind getting out and letting me get dressed." Tony said sweetly. "I have a harem of scar-hating guys waiting for me and I've gotta look my best."

She could see the guilt clearly across Steve's face.

"Tony.. I.."

"Just get out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have made Steve a tad too mean in this chapter!  
> As always, I hope you're enjoying reading this! And please feel free to leave any feedback you have for me in the comments.  
> The positive feedback I've had so far has been incredible, thank you all so much!


	6. Movie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family movie night

  
  
“FRIDAY, do we have an origin on those robots yet?” Tony asked for the forth time that day, scrolling through her Stark-Tablet at images captured from the attack.  
  
“No Boss, they’ve basically vanished so I can’t really trace them.”  
  
“You’re telling me no one in the world has seen flying robots in green capes? Seriously?” She rolled onto her good side and turned Clint's TV on. She’d been camping out on his and Natasha’s floor of the tower the past few weeks, she shared a floor with Cap and had been trying her damn hardest to avoid him, which turned out to be easy since she was pretty sure he was also avoiding her.  
  
“The only reported sighting of the ‘bots was from the attack Boss, nothing before, nothing after.”  
  
So a gang of murder bots show up out of the blue, presumably destroying things to draw her out into the open and kill her, then vanish. Admittedly stranger things had happened in her life but Tony couldn't help but feel uneasy at the situation, she needed to find out where they came from and who sent them and she needed to find out fast.  
  
“You look tense.” Clint said, coming in the room. “Wanna watch a movie?”  
  
“Always.” Tony answered, grinning.  
  
“Great, Steve's watching Star Wars upstairs, we should join him.”  
  
Tonys smile instantly vanished and she turned her attention back to her tablet.  
  
“Tony c’mon,” Clint moaned, “you have to talk him again eventually.”  
  
“I don't have to do anything.” Tony mumbled back stubbornly.  
  
“Well why don't we at least go and watch the film in an uncomfortable silence together?”  
  
Tony sighed.  
  
“It’s Empire,” Clint said in a sing-song voice. “I know that’s your favourite.”  
  
“Clint-” Tony began.  
  
“Look I know Steve was an ass but you can’t hide from him forever.” Clint crossed his arms and sniggered. “Also I bet he’ll be ten times more uncomfortable than you.”  
  
“…Well you should’ve started with that.”  
  
  
  
——————  
  
  
  
They made their way slowly to the movie room in the communal area, with Tony regretting her decision more and more with every step they took, she nervously scratched at her chest, drawing Clint's eye.  
  
“look, I gotta know,” he scratched the back of his head awkwardly, “ _did_ you ask Loki to-”

“No.” Tony cut him off firmly.  
  
“But it is gone?”  
  
“Yes.” Tony said, giving him a warning look, this wasn't something she wanted to talk about. Clint held his hands up in surrender and they made the rest of the way there in silence.  
  
When they got there Tony was surprised to see Vision sat with Rogers, both intently watching the film.  
  
“So how far through are we?” She asked, surprising them both. Clint jumped straight down onto a bean bag and made himself comfy, Tony awkwardly hovered, still not sure she wanted to be there.  
  
Steve immediately shot up of of his seat. “Tony! You’re here! You're looking good-great! Hows the arm?”  
  
Tony looked him over, it was hard to stay mad at him when he looked so earnest.  
  
“Practically healed, I took the sling off yesterday.”  
  
“That’s great!” The smile he gave her was so heartfelt all she could do in response was roll her eyes at him.  
  
“So why Star Wars?” She changed the subject.  
  
“It was on Captain Rogers list.” Vision answered her. “Are you joining us? We may have to make more popcorn.”  
  
They all glanced over at the tiny bowl of popcorn on the arm of the sofa Vision was sat on.  
  
“Yeah I will be, put it on pause and I’ll go get more snacks.” The look of relief on Steve’s face made her genuinely smile, it was nice to feel wanted sometimes, even if it was just because the Capsicle felt guilty.  
  
She made her way to the kitchen and dug out all the potential movie snacks she could find, including five varieties of popcorn. If they were going to watch a movie they were going to do it right, she wondered if Vision had tried M&M’s yet before added a few bags to the pile. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad she thought, looking at her snack mountain proudly.  
  
“Need a hand?” Steve asked, appearing in the doorway. “You do know there’s only the four of us right?” He said half laughing, gesturing at the pile of food.  
  
“Have you seen how much Barton eats?” Tony grinned back at him. “Any requests? We have some butter pecan ice cream if you want? I know it’s your favourite.”  
  
“Yeah that’d be nice, thanks.” Steve said smiling softly, before he sighed and looked over at her sadly. “Look, Tony…”  
  
“You don't have to say anything Cap.” She tried to cut him off.  
  
“Yes.” He said firmly, coming properly into the room. “I do. I know I was out of line the other day, I should have never said those things to you, I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s fine Cap, honestly.” Tony sighed. “I’m used to you giving me hell over one thing or another. Broken protocol or broken bones, I know what you’d rather take. I’m just wired the other way, I know we’re gonna clash.”  
  
“Is that what you really think?” Steve asked quietly. “I’d rather you were hurt?”  
  
“Well…”  
  
“Tony.” Steve grabbed her arms. “I was terrified! Do you have any idea how it felt being stuck on the ground, useless! Watching you fall, _again_. I would’ve done anything to be the one to catch you.”   
  
They both stared at each other, Tony saw the sincerity and urgency in his face, she had no idea how to react, it was easy for her to accept Steve didn't really like her, it was a basic fact of life to her at this point, what he was saying made no sense.  
  
“Cap, I didn't know you cared.” It was supposed to come out as a joke so she could brush off the situation, unfortunately it came out a lot more sincere and she kicked herself for it.    
  
“Of course I care.”

“You guys wanna know what _I_ care about?” Came the unimpressed voice of Natasha. “Getting my damn popcorn. Make kissy faces at each other during the movie.”  
  
“You’re joining us?” Steve asked annoyed.  
  
“The whole gang’s there.”  
  
“Great!” Tony said brightly, stepping quickly away from Steve to gather the snacks. “Family movie night!”  
  
  
  
—————  
  
  
  
Natasha wasn't lying when she said the whole gang. The three of them returned to find everyone sat in an uncomfortable silence, either glaring at or pointedly ignoring Loki, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. Tony strongly suspected Thor made him come watch the movie with everyone as some sort of bonding exercise since he was desperately trying to include Loki in any sort of conversation.  
  
“My brother is also a practitioner of magic!” He was enthusiastically telling Wanda. “Perhaps he could teach you some tricks, or you him?”  
  
“Sure.” Wanda replied with a strained smile before moving to sit closer to Vision.  
  
“So, we were gonna watch Empire but maybe we should start from A New Hope?” Tony asked Steve. “I doubt the dynamic duo over there have seen Star Wars.”  
  
“Let’s put it to a vote!” Steve suggested brightly, it kind of unnerved her, she was expecting him to argue on the basis of him being Steve.  
  
Everyone eventually decided to a movie marathon night starting with A New Hope, Tony dispersed the snacks between everyone, trying to make sure she got everybody’s favourites right, turns out Vision hadn't had M &M’s but was very excited to try them, he shared them with Wanda and it was adorable.  
  
“Thor we’re out of pop tarts but I'm pretty sure you’ll enjoy toffee popcorn.” She said throwing him a bag. “OK so, ice cream for Cap, Kisses for Clint, Mike without the Ikes for Tasha annnd what do you want?” She finished, turning to Loki.  
  
“I can whole heartedly assure you, I'm fine without.” Loki said, giving Thor a look of disgust as he inhaled his popcorn.  
  
“Ok well don't come crying to me when you get hungry and all we have left are the junior mints!”  
  
“Don’t touch my mints.” Clint said jokingly, before realising who he was talking to and turned away again in a huff.  
  
“How about we just start the movie?” Suggested Steve, moving over on the coach so Tony could sit with him and Thor.  
  
“Please!” Tony jumped down between them, putting her legs across Steve and leaning against Thor, who casually slung his arm around her to make them both more comfortable as the film started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really struggled getting this chapter out, both because my laptop was being a pain and because I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to take it, so I'm sorry that this chapter isn't as good or as long as the others and kind of feels like filler! Although I'm happy to say I have a solid plan now going forward, so there's that :)  
> As always please feel free to leave me any comments and thank you so much for reading! I really hope you're enjoying the story <3


	7. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Tony have some alone time.

 

All in all it was a pretty calm and quiet night Tony reflected, a small food fight had broken out during Return of the Jedi, but that was probably her fault for trusting Clint with anything he could use as a projectile. Loki had slipped away after the end of Empire but she hadn't called him out on it, she was surprised he had lasted that long given that he clearly didn't want to be there in the first place, although he had seemed to be watching pretty intently, he might have just been tired Tony considered. 

"Are you coming back with us or..?" Natasha asked her before leaving with Clint.

"Nah, I miss my own bed. Plus you and Barton both kick in your sleep." 

"Fair enough," Natasha said, rolling her eyes, "can't say I won't miss all the bottles littering my floor."

"Ahem, technically _my_ floor, I'll litter it all I want."

"Goodnight Tony."

Deciding she better also leave before she was left alone for another awkward conversation with Steve she headed back to her room to find Loki pacing outside the door.

"Finally." He snapped at her. 

"Excuse me, but have you been waiting here for the past two hours?" 

"Are you going to let me in?"

Tony seriously considered saying no but she was tired and prone to bad decisions so, "Yeah sure, whatever, if you murder me leave the team a note letting them know."

Loki stormed into her bedroom and started pacing again.

"Something on your mind Lokes?" She ventured.

"Did Luke kill Vader?" 

Ok, that was unexpected.

"Come again?"

"Luke." Loki said again, slowly this time. "Did he kill Vader?"

"No." Tony replied equally as slowly.

Loki seemed to deflate a bit and sat down on the edge of her bed. Tony approached him slightly cautiously and sat beside him, they stayed together in silence for a moment. 

"I killed my father." Loki eventually said, so quietly Tony almost didn't hear him. "Once Odin's greatest foe and I slew him where he stood, did Odin care? Nothing was enough for him." He sounded bitter and broken and Tony wasn't sure she should be hearing this. Of course she already knew the story, well Thor's version anyway. 

"What happened exactly?" She asked cautiously. 

"I tricked Laufey, I promised him the chance to kill Odin while he slept. I killed him instead, I then attempted to destroy Jotunheim with the Bifrost but I was stopped by my fool brother." Loki sneered. "He had wanted to do the same thing not a week earlier yet he fought me over it, what was once his greatest desire was suddenly madness. I told Odin all I had done, I had done for him. His only response was rejection." 

Loki stood up to leave, just as he got to the door Tony spoke up. 

"I killed a father figure too."  

Loki paused and turned back. 

"I mean, different circumstances but.. yeah." Tony wasn't sure what compelled her to share, but once she started she couldn't stop. "Obadiah. I'd known him basically my whole life, I always thought he had my back, especially when the old man didn't. Or just plain wasn't around, he was always off looking for Cap, I could never compete with a super soldier. Anyway, turns out Obie tried to have me killed by some terrorists, which is how I got," Tony gestured to her chest, "then he tried to kill me again by literally ripping out my fancy new heart. So. Yeah. He's dead now." 

Loki had sat down beside her again while she was taking. "And what happened to your metal heart? You no longer have it." 

"I had bits of metal stuck in my chest, the Arc Reactor kept them away from my heart. I had the metal removed so I didn't need the reactor anymore. All I had left was a scar." 

"I see." 

Tony glanced up at Loki, he seemed to be pretty deep in his thoughts, he was staring intently at the floor with a slight frown on his face. 

"Wanna watch Return of the Jedi? Y'know since you missed it? I have 65" 4K mounted on the wall." 

"I have no idea what you just said to me." Loki deadpanned. 

"I have a fancy ass TV." 

"You've already seen it." 

"Yeah a million times, a million and one isn't gonna kill me." She smiled. "C'mon I know you want to, plus I definitely saw you stealing salty popcorn so I know what snack food you like now." 

"Ok," Loki smiled back at her, "Let's watch." 

 

\-----------

 

Tony must've fallen asleep at some point because she was woken up by something shifting next to her.

"Stay still." She grumbled, still half asleep, cuddling more aggressively into whoever was beside her.

"The movie is over..." Came a reply, Loki, her mind registered dimly.

"Whatever, don't go." She mumbled again before drifting off.

"I won't."  

 

\-----------

 

Two things registered in Tony's mind when she woke up the next morning, she was really comfy and she wasn't alone. 

She blinked open her eyes to see that she had been sleeping with her head resting on Loki's chest and the rest of her body basically draped over half of his. Loki was still sleeping, he had his arm wrapped around her body and his head was tilted slightly downwards towards her. He smells nice, she thought absently, like spice. Although he probably wasn't going to be thrilled to wake up and find she had been using him as her own personal pillow. 

The way Tony saw it, she had two ways to get out of this situation. Slowly she started trying to wiggle out from his arm but it turns out she wasn't a match for asgardian strength even when they were sleeping. So she went with option two and started prodding Loki in the face. 

"Rise and shine sleepy head!" She said, still poking him until his eyes snapped open. 

"Morning sunshin-" She was cut off suddenly as Loki flipped over, pinning her down underneath him, pressing his forearm down onto her throat. His eyes were all madness and intensity and they were all she could see until he seemed to snap out of it. He all but jumped away from her, retreating to the far side of her bed, presumably to give her some space as she coughed.

"Ok, so, not a morning person." She sputtered, sitting up. "Noted." 

"I didn't mean... I'm used to waking up alone." 

"Yeah, I can tell. I mean, I suppose that was technically my fault but please don't suddenly choke again... Unless I ask you to anyway." She finished with a wink. It was supposed to make him laugh, or smile at least, instead he flinched more away from her.

"BOSS, four of the same robots have been spotted across Sandy Hook Bay, I've plotted their trajectory, they're heading directly for the tower." FRIDAY alerted them both. "Captain Rogers is assembling the team."  

"What do you mean he's assembling the team?" Tony questioned. "I'm the team!" She leapt out of bed and ran to the nearest elevator to the hanger. 

"What the hell?!" She shouted, bursting in the find the team just about ready to leave. "Where was my alert?"

"You're on Loki sitting duty this time Tony." Steve told her as everyone else made their way onto the Quinjet. 

"The robots _fly_. You need me. This is bullshit Rogers." Tony knew exactly what was going on, this was Steve's way of apologising, keeping her out of danger. 

"Tony we don't have time to argue over this, you're benched. That's an order."

"I thought you knew following orders wasn't my style?" She stubbornly shot back. 

"Ms Stark," Vision materialised at her side, giving her a half a heart attack. "If the robots are truly targeting you as we all suspect, seeing that you are not amongst us may deter them. Stop the fight before it starts so to speak."

"You think they won't fight you guys if I'm not there?"

"Perhaps."

Tony considered it for a moment. "Fine, but do your best to stick trackers on the bastards ok? We need to find out where they come from. 

"Of course." Vision started to float away to join the rest of the team on the Quinjet.

"Vis," Tony grabbed his arm, stopping him briefly, "if they don't retreat... call me in, ok? Seriously."

Vision simply nodded in reply.

 

\-----------

  

Tony made her way slowly back through the tower, making her way to the kitchen, feeling more and more on edge as she went. She should be out there helping, not on baby sitting duty. But on the other hand Vision sort of had a point. 

Speaking of baby sitting, she better actually check up on the God she'd ditched in her bedroom.

"FRIDAY, ask Loki if he want's some breakfast, I'm going to try making omelettes again."

No response.

"FRIDAY?" She asked again, more urgently. Still nothing. When she got into the kitchen the first thing she saw was all the appliances were off, she flicked the light switches but nothing. A power outage then, she decided, someone must have compromised the main arc reactor, it wouldn't have just failed on its own. That shouldn't have affected FRIDAY though, she had her own power source separate to the tower, and back ups for her back ups.  

She activated her watch-gauntlet and grabbed one of Nataha's multiple "hidden" hand guns and made her way slowly through the rest of the floor, waited for FRIDAY to, hopefully, reboot.

Deciding it couldn't hurt to get some back up she heading in the direction of her bedroom, hoping to find Loki. When she was about halfway there the intruder alert suddenly started blaring. 

"About time, FRIDAY you back baby?" 

"Yes Boss, sorry for the delay, three hostiles detected. All locat-" FRIDAY abruptly cut out again, along with the alarm. Tony hoped she sent an alert to the team while she had been briefly back. 

OK, so, three hostiles. Tony took a deep breath. No problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! As always please feel free to leave me any comments you have! It always makes my day when you guys take the time to tell me how you feel about the story :)


	8. Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Tony team up

Turns out, finding three hostiles that could be literally anywhere in a fifty floor high tower, wasn't actually "no problem". 

Tony had methodically searched three floors now and was already bored and irritated. She almost gave up when she realised she had to take the stairs because the elevators weren't working. She actually did give up after the forth floor and just decided to go to her workshop, put on a suit and wait. If the intruders were some of the death bots, which Tony was fairly positive they were, then she figured they'd try to come get her eventually. She might as well spend her time productively while she waited. 

As soon as she got into her workshop she suited up. 

"FRIDAY?" She questioned cautiously into her helmet.

"Yes Boss?" 

Tony laughed in relief at the familiar Irish accent. 

"There's my girl." She mumbled fondly. "Don't suppose you know where the intruders are?"

"Sorry no, I'm cut off completely in the tower, in only running in your suits at the mo."

"Yeah I figured." Tony sighed. "Do you know where they were earlier? Actually come to think of it do you know where Loki is?" She hadn't found him earlier either.

"Two of them _were_ in the main lab, one was in the reactor room. Mr Liesmith was in your bedroom. This was before the power was cut though." 

Tony frowned. 

"Did you manage to get word to the team?"

"No, Boss."

"Can you patch me in now?"

"Of course."

Tony instantly heard the familiar crackle in her ear of comms kicking in.

"Hello? Anybody out there? We have a bit of a situation at the tower." 

"Well we have a bit of a situation out here!" Clint shouted back at her, she rolled her eyes.

"Unruffle your feathers Barton, can any of you make it back here? Tower power is dead and there are three intruders" 

"That's a negative Tony," she heard Natasha say, "more and more of them keep coming, we're all stretched pretty thin as it is." Tony heard the distinct sound of an explosion in the background and winced.

"OK, that's no problem, I can handle things here." She said in what she hoped was a reassuring voice before communication cut out on their end.

With nothing else to do while she waited, Tony set about fixing the power problem. She took an arc reactor out of one of her suits and connected it into the rooms fuse box, hopefully that would be enough to power a few of the floors until she could get down to the main reactor. Then she set up some traps, she knew she had no chance three to one but maybe with some help... 

She gathered up any and all electromagnets she had kicking around and hooked them up together in a ring around about quarter of the room. They were pretty small but together they were powerful enough to at least slow a metal thing down, then she set up a wireless switch, just a small button she could keep a hold of. With that done she made her way over to the microphone on the communications panel in the corner of the room.

"FRIDAY, I need you to tell me this is a bad idea and not to do it."

"I would if I ever thought it would make a difference, Boss."

"Sassy." Tony tutted affectionately.

"Helloooo!" She sang into the microphone, her voice would definitely be echoing across all the floors she'd managed to get power to, she just hoped that's where the intruders where as well. "There's a party going on in the workshop of the one and only, Tony Stark! You're all invited, bring a friend! I'll be waiting!" 

About five seconds after her announcement Loki teleported into the middle of the room, looking thoroughly pissed off.

"Have you been here this whole time?" He demanded instantly.

"Not the _whole_ time." She shrugged. "By the way, seen any suspicious looking robots skulking around the tower?"

"I destroyed it." Loki said smirking proudly. 

"Bad news, there's more than one." Tony told him.

Loki's smirk slipped off his face and was replaced with a frown.

"That's troubling, it was hard to destroy."

Tony grimaced, that was troubling, Loki was basically a god, he should have been able to tear it apart. Thor had been smashing them easily enough anyway, his only real issue had been the amount of them.

"They're magical, at their core." Loki explained, as if sensing her thoughts. "They were difficult for me to pull apart with my own. I stabbed its eyes and ripped off its head and it still would not stay down. I eventually resorted to freezing it and stabbing a hole through its chest."

"And that made it stay down?" 

"Yes."

So that meant the power source was in the chest. Or at least extreme cold made them shut down.

"Would you be able to do that again?" 

No sooner had the question left Tonys lips then the two remaining bots suddenly crashed into the workshop, coming down from the ceiling. Loki backed away until he was standing by her, twin daggers appearing in his hands out of nowhere. 

"Now?" He asked.

Tony glanced downwards, the robots were a few steps outside the electromagnet ring she had made.

"When I give the signal." She said lowly to him, before stepping forwards into the ring and towards the bots.

"Boss, this is a bad idea. Don't do it." FRIDAY warned in her ear.

"Hey fellas, looking for me?" The robots stayed perfectly still, observing her, she wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. "Most people have to make appointments, maybe you guys just couldn't afford my day rate?"

Still nothing.

"You wanted me, right? Here I am." Tony stepped closer and closer. "C'mon I'll make it easier for you." She stepped out of her suit. The reaction was instant, they both immediately charged forward, Tony stumbled backwards, pressing the switch for the magnets as she went, it slowed them down to more of a walk then a run but they were still coming.

"NOW! NOW!" She shouted at Loki, who pushed her roughly out the way before summoning what looked like a glowing blue box and using it to blast both the machines with a barrage of snow and ice. Once they were fully frozen he punched straight through both of their chests and they fell to the ground. Not taking any chances Tony stepped back into her suit and blasted them a few more times, when they were thoroughly destroyed she stepped back out of the suit, turned back to Loki and promptly did a double take.

"You're blue."

Loki immediately tensed. 

"Frost giant." He stated coldly.

Tony knew she was on shaky ground at best here but she couldn't help herself when she reached forward towards his face, only to have Loki hurriedly back away looking alarmed.

"Sorry, I was just curious about the markings, are they like tattoos or a natural part of your skin?" 

"...Natural." Loki looked at a loss for words for a moment. "Are you not frightened?"

"Of a six foot Smurf?" Tony laughed. "Bruce turns green, you turn blue, it's not a big deal, we're all friends here." She grinned up at him.

"In Asgard, if this form was revealed I would be considered a monster." Loki said quietly.

"Look, I've seen monsters. Your skin doesn't make you a monster."

"And what _does_ make a monster Stark?" Loki angrily demanded, moving towards her. "I've lied, I've killed, butchered your kind without a second thought. I could kill you right now if I wished and would still sleep peacefully in my bed, is that monster enough for you?"

Loki had her backed up against one of the benches, his face inches from her own, the colour was slowly fading from his skin, for a brief moment he was half and half, glaring down at her with one green eye and one blood red one. 

"You don't want to be a monster though, do you?" Tony asked him in return, refusing to look away. 

"It seems I was born without a choice." 

"Everyone has a choice. I did, you do." 

Loki continued to glare down at her, his eyes burning intensely into her own. Tony started to worry that she had pushed him too far until suddenly he dipped his head down and pressed a surprising gentle kiss to her lips. Before Tony had time to even think about reacting he pulled away again, looking stricken.

"I... I'm sorry." He stuttered and then vanished, leaving her alone in the workshop.

 

\-----------

 

When the rest of the team arrived back to the tower Tony felt like she was sleepwalking through the de-brief, she told the team what they needed to know then got the hell out of there, stumbling slightly back to her room. Where she sat on her bed going over what had happened over and over again, trying to process it, trying to work out how she felt about it.

Eventually she picked up her phone and called the only person she knew for sure would answer.

"Tony?"

"Hey Pep, what happened with us?"

"What? Tony are you ok?" Peppers concerned voice echoed back to her. "Are you drunk?"

"I wish I was drunk," Tony grumbled, "seriously, we were good together right?"

"Yeah, we were great." Pepper told her softly. "Just better as friends." 

"The tower's broken by the way." Tony told her, suddenly changing the subject. "Can you sort a team to come down and fix it tomorrow? The reactors damaged and I think some cosmetic stuff, I'll have FRIDAY send you a full list."

Pepper sighed on the other end of the line. "Sure thing Tones, I'll get that sorted straight away. Anything else?"

"Nope!" Tony said brightly. "That will be all Miss Potts."

"Whatever you say Miss Stark." Pepper chuckled. "Call me if you need anything else, ok?"

"Will do." Tony said before hanging up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I have absolutely zero knowledge of electricity or electromagnets or anything like that so I'm really sorry if my obvious lack of knowledge took anyone out of the story! I tried my best haha  
> Hopefully the next chapter will be out sooner! I hope you've enjoyed this one! Please feel free to comment, I love reading your feedback <3


	9. Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Steve go for Breakfast together.

Tony woke up early the next day, rolled over and checked her StarkPad, she had a few messages from Pepper letting her know that had arranged for some of Stark Industries best technicians and engineers to sort out the reactor for her, they should be there already if they'd shown up on time. Forcing herself out of bed Tony put on an old Iron Maiden tee and some worn jeans and made her way down to the reactor room to make sure they actually had a handle on things. The tech wasn't exclusively hers anymore but there was no one alive who understood it as well as she did.

"Good morning Ladies and Gents." She yawned as she entered the room, receiving a chorus of, "Morning Ms Stark!" back. 

Tony surveyed the damage and winced, the bots had really done a number on the reactor, it was smashed to hell and probably going to take a week or so to fix. The back up reactor was looking a lot better though, that would be fully fixed by the end of the day so at least the whole tower would be up and running again soon.

"Everybody happy? Do we all know what we're doing?" 

After being throughly assured by the team that they had everything under control Tony decided she wanted to go out for some breakfast.  

"FRIDAY, ask the gang if anybody wants to join me for breakfast? I'm in the mood to spend a ridiculous amount of money on the perfect eggs."  

"Do I extend the invite to Mr Liesmith?" 

Tony considered, she was pretty sure that Loki wasn't actually allowed to leave the tower at all. Plus she wasn't sure if she, or the rest of the team, would be prepared to deal with the press if anybody recognised him just casually out and about with The Avengers. There was also the matter of that kiss.

"Maybe run it past Steve first?" Tony grimaced, that was the cowards way out and she knew it. There was no chance Steve would say yes, but at least now she wasn't technically leaving Loki out.

"Captain Rogers says... Well basically it's a no Boss."

"Thought as much."

"He will however, join you for breakfast."

"Fab. Any other takers?"

"No luck Boss, everyone else is either asleep or busy."

"OK, great, tell Cap to meet me out front and have a car sorted to come get us please."

"Will do Boss."

 

\-----------

 

The car ride was awkward, Tony wasn't surprised. 

She could sense the annoyance radiating from Steve, probably down to her asking about Loki, but to be fair Steve was usually annoyed at her anyway so she didn't think too much about it.

"Where are we going by the way?" Steve suddenly asked.

"The Garden at the Four Seasons, they always have a table for me."

"Seems a bit excessive for breakfast." He grumbled.

Tony rolled her eyes. "You didn't have to come, I said I wanted expensive eggs."

"How expensive are we talking here?"

"Excessively expensive." Tony smirked. 

"Tony, I'm not sure if," Steve looked around awkwardly, "I don't think I'll be able to cover it. Maybe we could go somewhere else?"

"Don't worry about it I'm paying." 

"You always pay, I'd like to treat you for once."

Tony gave Steve a considering look, The Avengers was almost fully funded by her, she was used to paying for everything, honestly it didn't really even mean that much to her, people didn't usually want to treat her, it was nice that Steve wanted to make the gesture.

"How about you get the next one?" 

They grinned at each other as the driver pulled up outside the restaurant. They made their way inside and were instantly shown to a table by a window and underneath one of the indoor trees that decorated the room. 

Tony sneaked a glance over at Steve while they were looking at the menus and smiled when she saw him staring around at all the decor, taking it all in and looking a little in awe at it all. He caught her staring and blushed, quickly looking back at his menu. 

"Steve you're adorable." Tony giggled. "We should've brought your sketch pad, sorry I didn't think."

"I'm sure I'll remember this." He said, smiling fondly at her as the waitress took their order.

This was nice, Tony thought, they were finally on track to being proper friends, not just work colleges, she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this relaxed around Steve.

"Oh my God! I can't believe my eyes, is that Antonia Stark?" 

Tonys good mood instantly vanished as soon as she heard that voice. She looked up and glared as Justin Hammer sauntered over to their table.

"Tony, its so good to see you!" He leered as he pulled a chair over and sat down.

"Can't really say the same." She deadpanned in return. "When did you crawl out of prison and back into society?"

"Tony, Tony." He laughed unkindly. "You of all people should know the perks of being rich, oh and good behaviour too, of course." He winked towards Steve.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Steve asked cooly.

"Justin Hammer, former CEO of Hammer Industries." He reached his hand towards Steve but promptly dropped it when he realised Cap wasn't going to take it.

"Well as fun as this little catch up has been, which is, none at all. We're busy here." Tony said bluntly. 

"Of course, of course. Sorry for taking up your time." He stood up and started walking away. "But I'll be seeing you real soon Tony! I guarantee it." 

Their food arrived and they ate it in silence for a while. 

"Should we do something about him?" Steve asked.

"I am considering dropping him off the roof but I feel like that's not strictly legal."

"He threatened you Tony." 

"Hammer is an incompetent idiot. If that was a threat I'm not worried." Tony had a sinking feeling that this was all they were going to talk about for the rest of the morning, she could see Steve about to say something back and she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind to change the conversation topic. 

"So, do you think we should let Loki out the tower anytime soon?"

Steve blinked a few times, clearly trying to process what she just said.

"I mean, he's been here for a while now, he could be a real asset to the team if we let him." Tony continued. "Plus I'm sure it'll help with the whole redemption thing he's got going on, Thor was redeemed after a week of playing hero and he wasn't trapped indoors."

"That's because Thor _is_ a hero." Steve sighed. "Loki... isn't"

"But he could be." Tony persisted. "Not to burst your bubble Cap but we were all kinda shitty people before we sorted ourselves out. Loki isn't a bad guy, he's just done bad things, he could do great things working with the team!" 

"No Tony." Steve slammed his fist down on the table. "I'm not having a murderer on the team."

"You're kidding right? We're all murderers Steve! How many people have you killed?" Tony was almost shouting back.

Steve stared at her as if he'd never seen her before.

"You know what I mean Tony." He tried again. "We fight to protect people, we wouldn't just go out and attack civilians like he did."

Tony tried a different tactic. "Just give him a chance to do some good, everything he's done was only to try and make his dad proud." 

"How would you even know that?" Steve asked suspiciously.

"We talked about it." 

"I see." Steve said lowly. "And just how much time have you been spending talking to Loki?"

Tony rubbed her temples, she wasn't going to get anywhere with this and any good mood from before was completely gone.

"You know, I just _can't_ with you Rogers." She snapped, getting up. 

"Really Tony? Storming out again." 

"Bye Steve."

She made her way over to the door, paid their bill, stepped out onto the street and instantly regretting leaving Steve behind again. Tony fidgeted for a few minutes, deciding whether or not to go back inside, she really wanted to be friends with Steve but the man just drove her insane.

"Screw it." She mumbled under her breath, turning to head back inside until a hand clamped down on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.

"Tony, Tony, Tony. You really did make this far too easy for me." Hammer all but purred into her ear as he roughly shoved the butt of a gun into her ribs. "I've called my car around and you're getting inside it."

"Really Hammer?" Tony snarled. "This is your master plan? Abduct Tony Stark about ten feet away from where Captain America is finishing up his breakfast? Did prison kill off the few braincells you actually had?" 

Hammer jammed the gun harder into her ribcage.  

"Shut it Stark. I'm the one in control here."

Tony suddenly turned around to face Hammer, grabbing the end of the gun and pointing it downwards with one hand and Hammers collar with the other.

"It's cute that you thought that." She told him sweetly.

"I'm disappointed in you Tony, I thought you knew me better!" Hammer started laughing. "I have bombs rigged up around the city, you're going to get in the car or they're gonna blow. Now get off my shirt, people are staring."

Tonys eyes widened slightly, Hammer could be lying but she couldn't afford to take that chance. Chuckling, she let go of him and smoothed his collar back down, looping her arm through his as he roughly pulled her across to his car.

"Ok Justin." She said loudly, hoping there was at least one journalist nearby taking note. "Where are you taking me?"

 

\-----------

 

All in all, Tony had been in worse car rides. 

Hammer sat across from her, smirking with his gun trained on her.

"I have to thank you Tony, I really do. I thought it was going to take so much more time and effort to get you where I wanted you."  

"And this is where you want me?" Tony gestured around. "In the back of your cheap ass car?" 

Hammers eyebrow twitched but his slimy smile didn't falter. The car pulled over into a random garage.

"Tony please don't take this the wrong way but," Hammer inhaled and exhaled deeply. "I really really hate you." 

Before Tony could reply someone opened the door next to her and roughly pulled her out. She found herself face to face with somebody who could only be described as a discount Hulk. 

"I can just tell we're going to get on." She grimaced.

Discount Hulk grunted, lifted her up and slammed her roughly down onto the car.

"Yup. Best of pals." She wheezed before abruptly blacking out.


	10. Hammer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony doesn't have the best day.

Tony woke up, registered the bag over her head and started to panic, she tried to move her arms and realised they were tied to the chair she was sat on.

Just breathe, she told herself, in and out, in and out. You're not in the cave.

Once she felt calmer she did a mental assessment of her situation. Hammer had taken her, she was tied up, she was blindfolded and she had no idea where she was being held. Great.

Her head was aching and her arms and legs were sore where they had been tied too tightly, Tony tried wiggling her hands and feet to see if she would be able to get the ropes loose but they wouldn't budge. Other than that the only other injury she could feel was on her upper thigh, a deep throbbing pain that kept hitting her in waves, bitterly Tony concluded that Hammer must of found her tracking implant and cut it out of her. Then she grinned to herself when she realised that given the lack of pain, he clearly hadn't found the other one she had imbedded in her arm. Idiot.

The team would be coming for her when realised something was wrong, if any of them knew she'd gone off with Hammer that would be pretty soon. If they just assumed she was going off grid because of the fight with Steve... It would take a bit longer.

Tony made a mental note to at least try and stop getting kidnapped every other month and started working on a plan. Firstly, she needed to get out of the chair.

She pulled against her restraints, they still wouldn't budge. Think, what would Natasha do? 

_Break the chair._

Carefully she started to rock backwards and forwards until she tipped forwards enough to rest on her feet and fully lift the chair off the ground, she then counted to five and threw herself backwards as hard as she could. The chair groaned and one of the legs snapped but it didn't fully break, Tony took a few deep breathes and tried again.

Eventually after a few more tries the wooden chair successfully smashed underneath her body, she would've been happy about it if it wasn't for the fact that she was sure she'd broken a few ribs in the process, Natasha definitely made that look too easy. Groaning she pulled the bag off her head and surveyed the damage, she was still tied to the broken pieces of the chair so she started sliding the wood out from under the rope, it was slow going and painful but after maybe ten minutes she was fully free.

Tony was tempted to just stay sitting on the floor and let herself rest but she knew she had to keep moving, she had to get out. Surveying the room she sighed, no windows, one door, no other discernible features, pretty much a basic prison cell. Making her way over the door she tried simply opening it, there had definitely been one time where she'd managed to escape a room because her captor simply hadn't remembered to lock the door. Unfortunately no luck this time. 

"HEY!" She shouted as loud as she could. "I'M AWAKE! ARE YOU GONNA COME KILL ME OR WAS YOUR PLAN JUST TO BORE ME TO DEATH?!" 

Tony pressed her ear against the door and waited until she heard footsteps, then she picked up a piece of the chairs broken leg and stood as close to the wall by the door as she could.

When the door opened she swung the leg as hard as she could at whoever was walking throughs face. It connected with a very satisfying _thwack_ before the man it hit dropped to the floor in front of her, she smirked when she saw it was Discount Hulk and stepped immediately over his body out into the corridor where three more guards were waiting. 

They stared at each other for a moment before their shock wore off and they lunged towards her, Tony ducked underneath the arms of first guard and swung the chair leg up into the face of the second, spinning she kicked out and took the legs out from underneath guard number three before turning back to number one. He swung towards her and she was just a second too late moving out of the way, his fist connected squarely with her jaw and she fell roughly to the side, dropping the leg, his second punch landed on one of her broken ribs and it floored her.

The other two guards had recovered and both hauled her to her feet and began dragging her down the corridor. 

"So yeah," Tony wheezed, "I'd like to complain to customer services. Very shoddy treatment of your guests in this place."

They ignored her. 

They soon reached the end of the corridor, which opened up into a pretty spacious but barren room, there was a worktable with a pretty nasty array of instruments laid out on it, Tony internally grimaced before turning to glare at the only other thing in the room, Hammer.

"You never have been very patient, have you Tony?" He laughed at her. 

"Well you know me, Hammer. Unlike you, I actually like to get stuff done." Tony spat back. 

"You know, for someone who claims to be a genius you really are an idiot." Hammer sneered, walking closer to her. "I threatened you and within minutes you're getting in my car? Did you seriously think I had bombs in the city?" 

"I don't really take much of what you say seriously to be honest." 

"You'll regret that."

"Oh I'm sure I will when I'm watching the Avengers beat you to a bloody pulp." 

"Well if that's the case." Hammer smiled darkly, grabbing her chin. "We better give them something to avenge."

 

\-----------

 

Tony had to hand it to Hammer, apparently he wasn't completely incompetent at everything. Although, she reflected as he jabbed her stomach roughly with an electric cattle prod, causing her to convulse and cry out, it's not like torture is hard to get wrong.

So far Hammer had had his men beat her, one of her legs was almost definitely  broken and she'd lost quite a bit of blood from her wound where her tracker had been cut out. Then there had been some mild waterboarding, Tony was sure it would've lasted longer had Hammer not realised it wasn't affecting her as much as it should have been, she had Clint's training and previous experience to thank for that. Now Hammer had moved on to electric shock.

"I have to say Tony, you're really taking this like a champ." Hammer said as he hit her again with the prod making her cry out.

"I've had worse." Tony ground out.

"Well that's disappointing Tony, really it is."

"Always glad to disappoint you." Tony grinned.

Hammer narrowed his eyes at her before motioning towards his goons, two of them moved forward and dragged her over to the table, picked her up and dumped her roughly onto it then held her down.

"Y'know hammer, I really do get the appeal of all... this." Tony said gesturing around as much as she could. "But don't you just wanna kill me and get it over with? You know my team's coming for me."

"Tony." Hammer chuckled as one of his men wrapped a soaking wet cloth around her head. "I've had you for _days_ , no one is coming for you."

Her brain barely had time to process what he had said before Hammer touched the prod to the cloth. Tony tried for prides sake, but she really couldn't stop herself from screaming. 

Hammer pulled away and Tony tried to make sense of what he said. She had been unconscious but she had assumed just for a few hours, she couldn't have been here for days it didn't make any sense.

"You're a liar." She mumbled weakly.

Hammer hit her again with the prod and she didn't try to hold back as she screamed this time. 

"Nobody is coming for you Tony." Hammer growled, ripping away the cloth. "Nobody cares." 

Before he could hit her again with the prod he stopped abruptly, a confused frown crossed his face and he stumbled forwards slightly before turning away from her, revealing the golden hilt of a dagger imbedded in his back.

Tony smirked. 

"Looks like 'nobody' came with knives."

Hammer turned back to her furiously, pulling out a gun faster then she could blink. Loki appeared between them as he fired.  

"Insect." Loki snarled at Hammer darkly, grabbing him by the throat and throwing him into the wall before turning back and carefully picking Tony up off the table. 

Hammers goons had backed away in shock but were now regrouping as they saw Loki's hands were full. Loki clutched Tony tighter to him and all but growled at the advancing men.

Fortunately for them, the rest of the team burst into the room, Thor and Wanda quickly took out Hammers men as everyone else rushed over to Tony and Loki. 

"Are you alright?" Natasha asked first, while Vision and Clint tried to get a good look at her injury's.

"Oh, I'm great." Tony mumbled. "Doing better then my good buddy Justin."

" _Tony_." Steve's breathless voice was conveying a lot of emotions as he looked at her, mainly guilt.

"Hey Spangles, next time you pick the breakfast place."

Steve laughed weakly before tearing his gaze away from Tony to glare at Loki.

"I've got this, give her to me." He firmly demanded.

Loki backed away a step and held on tighter.

"How about I take her?" Vision cut in diplomatically. "I can get her to a hospital the fastest."

After a few tense moments Loki relinquished his hold on Tony and handed her over to Vision, who immediately began to fly upwards, phasing them both through the ceiling and into the open air.

"How long was I gone for?" Tony asked, flighting to stay conscious.

"Approximately ten hours," Vision replied, "We would've been here sooner but an on looker said they heard Hammer make a threat about bombs which we had to look into first, plus there was a brief delay in deciding if Mr Liesmith was to come."

"I'm guessing he got voted in then?"

"I honestly don't think any of us had a choice, he was most... adamant."

"Huh." Tonys vision started to blur. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to pass out, don't panic when I do?"

The last thing Tony saw was Visions concerned face turning towards her.

 

\-----------

 

Tony woke up confused and strapped down. Panic set in and she instantly started struggling, just to be held down on both sides.

"Hey, HEY! Tones, calm down, it's me."

"Rhodey?" 

Sure enough her best friends face came clearly into view hovering over her own. She instantly calmed down.

"What's the damage?" She asked, smiling up at him.

"Well my anxiety levels are through the roof." He dead panned, causing her to laugh. "You have a lot of broken bones, which are all set now, you're tied down so you wouldn't exacerbate your injuries. Especially the ones in your leg, you needed stitches."  

Tony sighed, suddenly realising one of the reasons Rhodey was there, the team would need him to stand in for her, she would be probably be out the field for at least 6 weeks.

"And Hammer?" She asked.

"Dead." A different voice answered, she turned and saw that sat on her other side was Loki.

"Are you allowed to be here?" Tony asked, mostly because she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"No, he's not." Rhodey answered for him, sounding more amused instead of annoyed. 

Tony grinned, Loki smiled fondly back.

"You shouldn't encourage him Rhodes." Steve's voice broke into the room.

Looking up, Tony saw Rogers framed in the doorway of her room carrying flowers and...

"What on Earth is that?" Loki asked unkindly.

In Steve's hands was a medium sized bear dressed in a small Captain America uniform. Steve glared at Loki and handed the bear over to Tony, who gave it a little squeeze.

" _Who's strong and brave here to save the American waaaay?_ " The bear started singing.

"Wow. That is awful." Rhodey told him. 

" _Who vows to fight like a man for what's right night and daaaay?_ "

"Horrid." Loki added.

" _Who will indeed lead the call for America? Who'll rise and fall give his all for America?_ "

"I didn't realise it sang." Steve said semi defensively as he also cringed at the bear.

" _Who's here to prove that he can? The Star Spangled Man with a plaaaan!_ "  

"Oh God this is so tacky," Tony laughed, "I love it. Thanks Steve. You can give the flowers to Rhodes though, I know he loves lilies." 

Rhodey grumbled but took the flowers from Steve. Th room stayed awkwardly silent for a while before Tony decided to break the silence.

"So not that I'm ungrateful but... Did _nobody_ bring me a hamburger?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK so this isn't a fun chapter for Tony, but fun fact! This is the chapter that started the story in my brain, I just wanted Loki to burst in and save her. So this is a bit of a de-rail from the actual plot but I wanted to keep it in somewhere! Also wanted a reason for Tony to be able to bum around the tower with Loki for a few weeks.  
> I'm not actually sure if Vision can extend his phasing powers to other things but figured eh, why not.  
> Thank you so much for reading and please, as always, feel free to leave a comment! It honestly makes me so happy to read them <3


	11. Drunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony shouldn't be drinking in her condition.

After a few more days Tony was deemed fit enough to go back to the tower, she suspected they wanted to keep her in for longer but she was desperate to leave, which made her a pain for anyone in the nearby vicinity to deal with. Tony had always hated hospitals.

Rhodey was the one who actually came and got her, Tony had assumed it would have been Steve or Vision but she wasn't about to complain, she was already tired of Steve acting like she would break any second. He just didn't understand, she'd been through worse.

"Now I know you're just gonna ignore me here but please take it easy over the next couple of weeks?" Rhodey asked her as he wheeled her over to the main tower elevator.

"I'm not sure if I can even operate the suit with a broken leg." Tony replied glumly. 

"Well don't try." Rhodey told her firmly.

When the elevator doors opened Tony was immediately accosted by a very emotional Pepper, who instantly rushed over and threw herself at Tony.

"I'm so glad you're alright!" She all but sobbed.

"Easy there Pep I'm fine, I'm always fine, you know that!" Tony told her, patting her arms awkwardly.

Pepper's demeanour quickly shifted and suddenly Tony was staring up at a furious CEO not a sad one.

"What were you thinking? Why on Earth would you get in a car with him-"

"Well he did have a gun to my-"

"I was worried sick! You're so reckless-"

"He said there were bombs!"

"You're going to give me a heart attack one of these days Tony!"

"Look," Tony raised her hands in a placative gesture. "I'm sorry, but I'm home safe now, ok?"

"Oh, Tony!" Pepper lent down and gave her a crushing hug. Tony made a mental note to give her some sort of raise or maybe send her on a holiday.

"Can we shout surprise yet?" Tony heard Thor boom behind Pepper. She lent around to see all of the team, minus Thor who was standing with his arms crossed, crouched behind sofas and chairs with a messily painted "Welcome Home!" banner strung up overhead.

"Aw, did you guys plan a party?" Tony asked.

"They tried to." Rhodey sighed as the team awkwardly got up out of hiding.

"Surprise." Clint said sarcastically, throwing in some jazz hands for good measure. "Just to let you know, Steve planned this and there's no booze, welcome home!" 

"She shouldn't be drinking in her condition!" Steve shot back at Clint as Natasha thumped him over the head. "Wanda made you a cake though."

"I didn't know what flavour you like, so it's chocolate." Wanda mumbled, shuffling awkwardly on her feet.

Tony was honestly touched, she usually had a strained relationship with Wanda at best.

"I love chocolate cake." She told her with an enthusiastic smile which Wanda half returned.

Rhodey started to wheel Tony into the room but she batted him away and did it herself, she didn't want the team to think she was totally helpless. 

"It is good to see you well Tony, I am sorry we didn't get to you sooner." Thor told her, patting her on the shoulder. "But my brother assured that your capture received justice for his crimes."

Tony still wasn't sure how to actually take the news Hammer was dead, or that the team just let Loki kill him, she decided to just ignore it for now and focus on other things.

"And where is the blueberry?" She asked Thor.

"Blueberry?" 

"Loki."

"Oh! I don't think he enjoys parties." Thor smiled awkwardly. "I haven't seen him all day."

"Do you guys think we should be keeping a better look out over the crazy-stabby-wizard that lives with us or?" Clint asked wandering over.

Steve looked like he was about to give a very serious response before Natasha cut in with, "Nah, he's fine."

Steve looked ready to argue but since none of the rest of the team seemed to think Loki was still any sort of real threat he dropped it with a sigh.

"If we need to know what he's doing we can just ask FRIDAY." Vision said as he cautiously sniffed some of the cake.

Steve just sighed again before perking up.

"Well at least one positive came out of this." He said brightly. "No more robots!"

Everyone stopped and looked at him.

"How do you mean?" Natasha asked him.

"Well obviously they were sent by Hammer."

Pepper snorted.

"Trust me, they weren't." Tony told him firmly. "Hammer has never had the capability to make something like that, besides I'm pretty sure the whole thing was very spur of the moment on his part, I did just basically wander into his arms."

"Yes but who else would be sending them after you?" Steve persisted.

"Well Cap, that's what I'm going to find out."

 

\-----------

 

After the party Tony went straight to her room, already sick of the wheelchair.

"FRIDAY, do we have any crutches lying around?"

"No Boss, would you like me to purchase some?"

"Please and thank you!"

Tony wheeled over to her bed and awkwardly hopped over from the chair to her bed, and glared at the wheelchair. Maybe she could alter it? Her dad had never managed to perfect the flying car but surely a flying wheelchair couldn't be that hard to do.

Tony sighed and lay back before suddenly jolting upright again.

She was an idiot.

Hopping back over into the chair she made her way to the nearest elevator, got off on Thor and Loki's floor and wheeled her way over to what used to be Bruce's room.

She knocked politely at first but after getting no response she got increasingly louder. When it got to the point where she was pounding as hard as she could the door suddenly swung open.

"What. Now. Thor." Loki hissed, looking straight over her. 

"Ahem." Tony coughed pointedly.

Loki looked down at her and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"You didn't come to my party." 

"I don't like parties."

"Yeah I heard, either way though I think you owe me." Tony told him with a smirk.

"Indeed." Loki sounded more amused than anything so Tony continued.

"Yeah well I mean it's only polite, so I was thinking you could get me another one of those magic healing rocks?"

Loki frowned at her.

"They don't grow on trees you know. I only had three."

"And you wasted one on a _bruise_?" Tony asked incredulous. "Do you not have priorities in space? What about the other two?"

"I used them on myself."

"When? Why?"

Loki stayed silent.

"Fine, guess I'm just going to have to live as a cripple for the next decade." Tony sighed dramatically.

"I'm sure you'll be fine." Loki told her firmly. "Besides I was under the impression that you did not approve of me using the healing stone last time."

Tony automatically touched her chest.

"You shouldn't do things to people without their permission."

They stood in an icy silence before Tony deflated.

"Thank you for coming to get me. I was starting to worry... that is, Hammer told me, no one was coming." Tony confessed.

"I think your Captain would've burned the city to the ground to find you." Loki told her, sounding slightly bitter.

"He's not _my_ Captain." Tony instantly protested. 

"Perhaps you should tell him that." Loki said sharply before closing the door on her.

 

\-----------

 

Instead of going back to her room Tony wheeled to Thor's instead. Knocking firmly on the door, he almost instantly answered.

"Are you alright?" He asked her.

"Wanna get drunk?"

 

\-----------

 

Tony woke up with a throbbing headache and only a vague recollection of the night before, she could remember almost everything up to when she had a sip of Thor's space beer, things got a bit fuzzy after that.

"FRIDAY, lights please."

Tony glanced around and very quickly noticed she wasn't in her room, judging by the mess, capes and weapons everywhere and slightly weird smell, she was in Thor's. 

"FRIDAY where is our resident thunder god?" Tony asked, sitting up and feeling a small sense of panic.

"Mr Odinson is not in the tower, he went to visit Doctor Foster last night, upon your insistence." 

Given that news and the fact that she was dressed in her t-shirt from yesterday and some shorts, Tony did a mental sigh of relieve that nothing crazy had happened last night. Not that she'd been overly worried, but it was good to make sure. 

"FRIDAY, where's my chair?"

"You asked Mr Odinson if he could make it fly for you. It's on the roof."

"Perfect." Tony grumbled. "Could you please ask Vision to go get it for me?"

"Vision is not here, he is visiting The Museum of Natural History with Miss Maximoff."

"Aw cute, so what's everyone else up to?"

"Ms Potts left early this morning, as did Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes. Agents Barton and Romanoff are currently preparing for a potential mission in Koblenz, Germany, and Captain Rogers is out running." 

So basically everybody was busy, Tony sighed. She edged toward the end of the bed and tentatively stretched out her bad leg, there was a dull pain but nothing she couldn't handle, she tried to stand up putting as much weight as she could on her good leg. 

"Ok, good start." She mumbled to herself.

Taking a few deep breaths to ready herself she took a slow step forward, as soon as her foot touched the ground she knew she had a problem if she put any weight on it she would definitely fall. Grimacing, she pulled her leg back and stayed still balancing on her good one, then she did a mental shrug and decided to try and hop.

It probably would've gone ok if it hadn't been for the fact she hopped straight onto a plate of what had to have been months old ham, slipped and crashed to the ground.

Pain shot through her like lightning and she cried out. Moments later Loki was staring over her frowning.

"I thought you were supposed to be smart?" He asked her, sounding annoyed.

"Why does Thor have mouldy ham in his room?" Tony groaned, rolling onto her back.

"He's trying to cook it with sunlight." Loki answered, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head.

"Well why wouldn't he be. Could you give me a hand here?"

Loki sighed before reached down, scooping her up and carrying her out of Thor's room.

"Where should I put you?" He asked exasperatedly. 

"Couch, I think I might have opened my stitches." 

Loki gently put her down and before she could protest, started examining her leg himself, kneeling down between her legs and gently lifting her bad one up to get a closer look.

"Erm." Tony stuttered as Loki ran his fingers smoothly across her thigh.

He looked up at her and smiled.

"I think you're fine."

They were so close, just staring at each other, suddenly all Tony could think of was when he had kissed her, she moved slightly forwards and Loki backed away instantly, standing up.

"I didn't sleep with Thor." Tony blurted out. "Just in case you thought..." She trailed off wincing, not really sure what compelled her to say anything in the first place.

Loki stared at her for a second, stunned, then burst into laughter.

"Fear not Stark, there was never any question in my mind of you _sleeping_ with my brother. Your reputation, so to speak, is safe." Loki chuckled. "I carried you to his room after you passed out and he flew off to visit his beloved."

"Oh." Tony said dumbly. "You could've taken me to _my_ room y'know"

"I could have." Loki agreed. "But that would involve much more effort on my part."

"You could've taken me to your room." Tony stated slowly, carefully watching Loki to gauge his reaction.

"I... Assumed you would be alarmed waking up next to me." Loki said hesitantly, sitting down carefully next to her.

"Yeah it was much more calming waking up in a room filled with mouldy meat and swords." Tony joked.

"Oh I'm sure." 

They smiled at each other, it was nice, comfortable even, but Tony knew she had to get going, she at least had to find out more about this mission the super spies were planning on going on.

"I don't suppose you would go get my chair for me?" 

Loki good-naturedly rolled his eyes at her before disappearing and reappearing a few moments later holding her wheelchair.

"Ta-daa!"

"You're cute." Tony told him chuckling.

Loki helped her over into the chair then stepped back awkwardly. 

"Do you need any more assistance?" He asked.

"Nah I'm good for now, I'll just get out of your hair." Tony hesitated before she spoke again. "Thanks again, for everything."

Loki just nodded back at her, before turning to head back to his room.

"Do you wanna watch a movie tonight?" Tony said suddenly. 

Loki turned back to her looking mildly surprised. 

"You don't have to, I just thought you'd like to hang out, I know a movie isn't much but I can't take you to a museum, at least I don't think I can, well I mean I can probably do whatever I want, I doubt every person in the world could recognise you.." Tony rambled until Loki put a hand up.

"If it will stop your chatter," Loki dramatically sighed. "then of course." 

"Great!" Tony beamed and started to wheel away towards the elevator. "See you later!" 

As the elevator doors closed she could just see Loki rolling his eyes, but smiling to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor should not be encouraging bad behaviour haha  
> I'd like to think that Loki wouldn't have ever assumed Tony slept with Thor, even if he hadn't put her in his room himself.  
> Sorry I haven't been as good with updates but don't worry this fic isn't abandoned by any means! I just don't have as much free time as I used to at the moment, sorry again!  
> As always, please feel free to leave any and all comments, they really make my day!  
> Thank you for reading!


	12. Misunderstanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Movies and feels

"Hey guys, I hear you're going on a super secret spy mission?" Tony wheeled into the briefing room, instantly spotting Clint and Natasha huddled together looking through information on a StarkPad.

"Clearly not much of a secret." Natasha sighed, raising an eyebrow. "There's been some potential sightings of robots across Europe. People are panicking and thinking that Ultron's back."

"More likely it's our favourite caped murder bots though, am I right?" Tony asked, wheeling closer as Clint handed her the Pad.

The images were blurry at best but they were definitely pictures of the bots, the humanoid shape and green blur of a cape were a dead giveaway.

"So what's your plan here? No offence guys but the whole team can barely take these things down." Tony said, handing the pad back.

"Thanks for the faith." Clint snorted. 

"The plan," Tasha said pointedly. "Is to observe and track them. Waiting around here, potentially for months to see if they decide to pop up is stupid."

"Also if they're after you, which honestly, who isn't," Clint grimaced. "We need to get to them before they get to you, especially when you're like this." 

"Fair enough." Tony sighed, wheeling around in circles. "I still think you should take some muscle. What about Rhodey?"

"We can't keep him from the military for extended periods." Natasha told her. "We were thinking of taking Wanda actually."

Tony stopped wheeling around and frowned. 

"She's powerful, and she needs some more field experience." Clint said.

"In that case.." Tony thought about it. "Take Vision as well, he's just as powerful as she is and they can be rookies together."

"Vision's not exactly inconspicuous Tony." 

"You guys call yourselves super spies? Just put a balaclava on him or something." Tony argued. "You might need a big gun,"

"It couldn't hurt to have him with us." Natasha conceded. 

"Oh and if you do run into the robots they don't do well against cold." Tony told them. "I'll have a look in my workshop and see if I can whip something up for you guys to take with you."

"Like a freeze ray?" Clint asked excitedly.

"I mean... Sure." Tony smiled at him fondly.

"Thanks, Tony. We'll be leaving in two days after we run everything by Steve, will that be enough time for you?" Tasha asked.

"Oh please, who do you think I am?" Tony smirked. "You'll have your freeze ray by tomorrow night.

 

\-----------

 

Tony absentmindedly made her way through the tower, already thinking of the best way to make a "freeze ray" for Natasha and then maybe some freeze arrows for Clint. The best way would to be to incorporate liquid nitrogen in some way, but then she would need a container small enough to be be used on a handgun but large enough to do some actual damage...

Tony was so lost in her thoughts she almost didn't realise that Steve was suddenly right in front of her.

"Woah there!" He laughed holding his hands out to stop her running him over.

"Oh sorry Cap, I was a million miles away." Tony told him, moving to go around the super soldier, but Steve stepped back in her way to stop her. 

"Erm, need anything Steve? I have blueprints to draw up." 

"I just wanted to talk." He smiled at her. "I thought we could hang out?"

"Oh, well I'm a bit busy now. Another time?" She wheeled past him and down the hall into the kitchen, she glanced back and saw Steve had followed her in.

"Seriously Steve, I am busy," She snapped at him. "I need to make Clint and Nat some ice weapons in less than two days."

Steve frowned slightly but stayed where he was, rolling her eyes Tony wheeled her way over to the counter, stopping short when she realise she wouldn't be able to reach up to the cupboards and sighed.

"Need a hand there?" Steve's frustratingly friendly voice asked.

"Nope." Tony answered in a clipped tone, spinning around and wheeling past Steve again, deciding she may as well head down to the workshop.

"Do you want to go for dinner sometime?" 

Stopping, Tony processed what Steve had said and spun slowly back around to face him. Under her gaze he awkwardly shuffled around.

"Not... right away, obviously." He said quickly. "When you're better, or I could make us dinner here tonight if you don't want to go out or um, wait."

"I'm sure the team would appreciate going out for a meal together." Tony said carefully, Steve's face fell a bit.

"No, no, sorry I meant just us." He shuffled again.

"Oh." 

Unbidden Loki's words from the night before echoed in her mind. _Your Captain_. 

Tony wasn't naive when it came to relationships, she could usually pick up straight away when people wanted something from her. She had assumed that Steve had simply wanted to be her friend, she had never considered, never thought it was a possibility that he might have wanted _more_.

"Well?" He asked her hopefully.

"Steve.. I don't think that's a good idea." She told him gently.

"What? Dinner?" He laughed nervously.

"No, us." Now it was Tonys turn to be awkward. "We just don't... I don't think we'd work."

"How can you say that when we haven't given it a shot?" Steve asked, walking closer to her. "I think we should at least give it a chance."

"Look, Steve." Tony sighed. "You're a great guy but let's face facts here, we piss each other off too much."

"No we don't."

"You're pissing me off now!" 

"Boss." FRIDAY cut in before Steve had a chance to speak again. "Ms Potts has arrived, she has your crutches and wishes to speak to you about urgent Stark Industries business."

"look... I'm sorry Steve." Tony told him firmly before she turned away again, surprising herself when she realised she meant it.

 

\-----------

 

"You can't use these yet. You'll aggravate your injuries." Pepper told her firmly, holding the crutches just out of reach.

"I'll do what I want." Tony grumbled, half heartedly trying to swipe them from Peppers hands.

Pepper in return, just gave her a look then pointedly put the crutches on the top of some shelves.

"That's cold Pep."

"Well then stop being a brat." Pepper pulled out a wad of papers from seemly nowhere and put them on the coffee table next to Tony. "You need to sign these and we need to talk about the Halloween Ball."

"Halloween Ball? It's not even the end of August." Tony pouted before signing whatever documents Pepper had given her.

"Yes but we need to plan it out and work out who to invite." Pepper told her patiently.

"I fully trust you to be able to take care of it." Tony smiled winningly and prayed she could just leave, of course with Pepper there was no such luck.

"You have to turn up to this one, we'll be inviting lots of important people and its important for you to schmooze with them." 

"But I don't wanna."

"Tony stop being a child. Do you want to invite the Avengers?"

"Sure, why not? We can suffer as a team."

Pepper just rolled her eyes.

"Can I go now? I need to make a freeze ray." 

 

\-----------

 

Tony had originally planned to spend the full two days the spies had given her making the weapons, but after her conversation with Steve she was throwing herself at the task hard enough for the sake of needing a distraction she might just get them finished in one. 

Making the arrows had been fairly straight forward. She designed the arrow heads so that they were strong enough to contain liquid nitrogen, but just brittle enough to shatter when they were fired at a hard surface, throwing said liquid nitrogen over whatever it came into contact with. For Natasha's gun she tried two versions, the first being the same idea as Clint's weapon, except the bullets housed the liquid nitrogen not arrow heads. This worked great in practice but Tony doubted just how effective that small of an amount of liquid would be when fired at the robots, Loki's magic box thing had unleashed a blizzard to stop them after all. Tonys second attempt at the gun ended up being more or less a very high tech water gun, with canisters filled with the liquid Nat could swap out and basically spray over the robots. Both the guns worked well but they weren't the most practical weapon so in the end tony ditched the idea and worked on a series of different grenade styled weapons for the widow to use instead. 

After she was finished Tony was pretty impressed with the array of weapons she'd built. They wouldn't be enough for a full on assault, but since these were only back up measures if the tracking mission went wrong and they were caught, they'd definitely do.

Tony leant back in her chair and allowed herself to relax for a second, letting out a deep sign she just sat for a moment and thought about when her life at the tower had gotten so confusing. Steve's hopeful face asking her to dinner flashing across her mind. She should've clocked on to it sooner, she could've let him down more gently. 

It's not that she didn't _like_ the super soldier. Hell, Steve was the whole package. Kind, funny good looking... But she just knew they couldn't work, there was too much past resentment there, too much constant conflict. Tony was 100% sure she could never be what Steve wanted her to be, what he expected her to be, and honestly she'd realised that years ago, when they'd first met.

" _The only thing you really fight for is yourself_."

And then there was Loki... And suddenly all she could think of was that kiss.

Sighing again Tony shook her head, that was something too confusing for her to focus on just now so she decided to ignore it and just go to bed instead, it was getting pretty late. She almost tried to get up from her chair to leave, forgetting for a moment why she was in it before rolling her eyes at herself and wheeling out of the workshop. 

She honestly really regretting not spending the day not trying to make it fly.

 

\-----------

 

When Tony arrived back to her room she was taken aback to find Loki leaning against the wall outside of it.

"Hey there cowboy." She greeted him. 

"I wasn't sure what time you wanted to watch the film. It's nearly ten o'clock."  Loki told her, somehow simultaneously raising an eyebrow and frowning at her at the same time. _You forgot about our plan_ , was the unspoken implication.

"Sorry, it's been a really weird day." Tony had almost been tempted to bluff and say she'd wanted to watch a movie this late, but lying to the God of Lies seemed a bit redundant. "Do you still want to watch something? We can make it a pyjama party."

"I don't know what that means." Loki deadpanned, but he still followed Tony into her room so she was taking that as him still wanting to hang out.

"Y'know, watch movies, gossip about boys, paint each others nails, braid our hair." She grinned over at him. "Never had those on Asgard?"

"Thankfully not." He told her humourlessly before sitting on the edge of her bed, arms crossed. "So what will we be watching?"

"Erm..." Tony mentally ran through about a thousand films at once trying to work out what would be best. Lord of the Rings? It could be his thing, but Loki was clearly annoyed with her so maybe a shorter film would be better... Something animated... Lion King might just give him brother killing ideas... Megamind? A blue evil alien who changes his ways, nope, it was just too on the nose. Horror? Action? Comedy? What would he prefer??

"Well?" Loki impatiently asked, cutting into her thoughts.

"The Princess Bride!" She blurted out instinctively. At Loki's confused look she quickly added. "It's a classic, everybody needs to see it at least once."

Loki didn't answer her but gave a small nod as if to say, _fine_.

Doing a mental sigh of relieve Tony hopped from her chair onto the bed and instructed FRIDAY to play the film for them. It was pretty tense at first, with an obviously pissy Loki sat rigidly at the bottom of the bed for the first ten minutes but he eventually seemed to relax and make his way up to lie next to her at the top. Tony kept nervously glancing over at him throughout the movie to see if he was enjoying it, his initial tutting at the whole "He was saying,  _as you wish,_ but what he really meant to say was _, I love you._ " bit didn't give her much encouragement that the film had been a good choice, but after seeing him laugh at Vizzini's death and smirk at Westley's quips she stopped worrying. It wasn't until Westley's "Death" scene that she paid attention to him again.

"He can't be dead. That isn't how these stories go." He told her, clearly bewildered, about two seconds before the sick kid on screen echoed almost his same words. Hearing this Loki whipped back around to glare at the TV making Tony giggle slightly.

"Shh, just watch it!" 

After that she paid less and less attention to the film and more to Loki's reactions, it made her happy to see him so invested, he was sitting upright, leaning as far towards the TV as he could, laughing, wincing, gasping, even almost jumping off the bed in triumph when Inigo Montoya finally defeated Count Rugen. When it was over and the credits rolled he whipped round, grinning down at her.

"That was truly an epic tale." He said enthusiastically.

"I'm glad you liked it!" She told him honestly. "It's one of my favourite movies." 

"Well I thank you, Lady Stark, for sharing it with me." Loki said, leaning back down onto the bed to lie next to her

"You're welcome, but there's no need to call me lady." Tony said laughing.

"As you wish." Loki said, playfully smirking at her.

Tony stopped laughing when she realised what Loki had said, her heart thudded in her chest as she took in just how close they'd ended up next to each other on the bed. All she could think of yet again was that one kiss, or his hand on her thigh, waking up in his arms, him taking a bullet for her. Loki hadn't been back in her life for very long, not even a full year but he'd certainly made an impact on her in the time they had spent together. Even though it was almost 100% probably a death wish on her part she couldn't help but feel drawn to him, she wanted to spend time with him, get to know him, have him on the team, help get him the redemption she just knew he really did crave. 

Acting almost on impulse Tony moved forwards to close the gap between them, pressing her lips softly against Loki's. She felt Loki move closer as if to deepen the kiss for a moment, then suddenly he pulled away looking pained.

"Tony I..." He trailed off awkwardly. 

Oh. _Oh_.

Damn it, she was supposed to be good at reading these situations, and she of all people should know that flirting didn't always mean you were after romance. She had assumed because of the last kiss...

 _You mean the one he gave you in a high stress situation and then vanished afterwords_? Her brain supplied.

But he had saved her... _Like the rest of the team._

But the flirting... _He smiles at you and quoted a movie_.

They had slept together! _No. You fell asleep on him_.

How had she been so wrong, looking at him now it was crystal clear, all Loki had wanted was a _friend_.

God she was an idiot, she was just like.. just like...

"Tony I'm sorry but we have to talk," A familiar voice cut into her thoughts as her door slammed open. "I... What the hell is going on here?"

_Steve._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I know not everyone will have seen The Princess Bride so spoiler alert I guess? (I mean the movie's like 30 years old so, go watch it!) But basically in the movie "as you wish" translates to "I love you". Loki is just saying it to be flirty, not an actual confession btw guys, I feel like it's a bit too early for that haha.  
> I promise I will try to get the next chapter out sooner, I'm just really busy at the moment so sorry again!  
> As always please leave a comment with any and all feedback, it really brightens up my day reading them! Thank you again!


	13. Talking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve assumes Tony is compromised.

"What the hell is going on here?" Steve repeated, angrily clenching his fists as he looked down at the two of them.

Tony for once in her life was speechless, Loki on the other hand had never seemed more relaxed.

"Didn't anyone ever teach you to knock?" He asked the captain mockingly, rolling away from Tony to lie down on his back with his arms behind his head, looking the picture of smug.

Steve's eye twitched before he strode purposefully over to the bed, picked Loki up by his collar and slammed him against the wall behind the bed.

"Steve!" Tony shouted, suddenly regaining her voice. "Stop! Put him down!"

Steve ignored her while Loki simply laughed in his face.

"What did you do to her." Steve growled, shaking Loki roughly against the wall.

"We were having a... what did you call it Stark? Pyjama party?" Loki cruelly smiled down at Steve before suddenly disappearing out of his grasp and reappearing immediately behind him.

Steve swung around and threw a punch, that Loki only just managed to dodge away from, before tackling the god to the floor, again Loki just teleported out of his reach, laughing as Steve furiously chased him through Tony's room. Not ever quite managing to touch the trickster. Every time Steve seemed to catch up Loki just teleported out of reach or danced out of the way, it would have been funny to watch if they weren't trashing her room in the process. 

"Steve!" Tony shouted, frustratingly stuck on the bed. She picked a book off her bedside table and threw it at the pair but it simply sailed over their heads, hitting a painting hanging on the wall and ripping a hole in it.

"Oh for the love of... FRIDAY, I need a suit in here!"

"Sorry Boss, but you cannot use any of your suits in your current condition without causing more damage to your person."

Tony gritted her teeth and rolled her eyes.

"Well then get someone who can walk in here!" 

"And who would you like me to get for you Boss?"

"Anybody! Whoever's closest!"  

Tony made her way off the bed as fast as she could and hopped into her chair just in time for Clint and Nat to burst in.

"Tony what's..." Clint trailed off as he took in the scene before him.

"Break them up!" Tony shouted over at them.

 "Your Captain has gone quite mad." Loki said, smirking at Steve before teleporting behind the two spies. "I believe an unprovoked attack is quite against _the American way."_  

Clint immediately pulled out his gun and held it underneath Loki's chin as Nat and Tony stopped an advancing Steve from getting closer.

"Ok, what's going on here?" Nat asked.

"I was simply-" Loki started but was cut off by Steve's shout. 

"Tony's been compromised! Loki's done something to her."

 "I am not and he has not!" Tony immediately protested as the spies attention was turned fully to her. "We were watching a movie together before Cap burst in and decided to tear up my room."

"You were doing more than just watching movie." Steve said darkly. 

"How about we all just calm down and discuss this like rational adults?" Natasha suggested, rubbing her temples.  

"What a great idea agent Romanoff," Loki said smoothly, "this has all just been a misunderstanding, Barton if you could remove your weapon?" 

When Clint made no obvious attempt to move his gun Loki simply sighed dramatically and teleported over to stand behind Tonys chair.

"There was no misunderstanding. Get away from her." Steve growled out.

"Steve. Stop." Tony told him firmly. "I'm not compromised. We were watching a movie together, then we were talking together. That isn't a crime." 

"But why were you watching a movie with him?" Clint asked, finally speaking again. 

"Because he's my friend and I can do what I want. Have we all forgotten that Loki isn't actually our enemy?"  

"Just because he told Thor some bullshit about changing doesn't mean he has."

" _Language_." 

"Tony be serious!" 

"OK." Natasha loudly cut in before pulling Steve gently to one side. "Cap, as difficult as this is to accept, Loki has not done anything wrong while he's been here. I don't think him spending time with Tony is bad." 

"I can't believe you're taking his side." Steve gaped at her. "We don't even know where Loki is half the time or what he's doing, we've gone weeks without seeing him before, he could be up to anything."

"Sorry to say Captain but my life here has been fairly dull. I mostly just stay on my floor." Loki told him, starting to sound bored with the whole affair. 

"FRIDAY, how many times has Loki left the tower?" Tony asked the AI suddenly.

"Three times Boss."

"So that would be two times to save my ass and the other was...?" Tony turned, questioning Loki.

"Just a test run to see if I could leave, I believe I went to Norway."

"And once you found out you could leave you decided to stay because?" Clint asked him coldly.

"Because I have nothing better to do. If I leave Thor would simply bring me back, it would be pointless for me to go."

Natasha and Clint looked at each other before they turned towards a still furious Steve.

"Look Cap, I don't like him anymore than you do but-" Clint started.

"He used magic on Tony." Steve said, cutting Clint off. "Her scar is gone. We all know why and how."

Tony instantly bristled. "Oh do we?" 

"You asked him to remove your scar and he used that opportunity to compromise you. Did something to your mind or, or..." 

"Or what?" Tony glared. "I can't believe you're this much of a jealous idiot Rogers."

The room went silent as Steve took in what Tony had said.

" _Jealous_?"

"And an idiot." Tony snapped at him harshly. "How exactly has Loki compromised me? He can't use magic on people. He gave me a healing space rock to get rid of a bruise I had and it just patched me up a bit better than expected."

"That's ridiculous." Steve scoffed, although even he was starting to look unsure of himself.

"You can ask my brother." Loki said cooly. "He knows all about healing stones."

"Face it Rogers the only reason you have to think I'm compromised is because you saw me lying next to Loki on a bed." 

Steve angrily paced the room. ''You believe her?" He suddenly asked Natasha who simply nodded in response.

"And you?" Steve practically growled, turning towards Clint.

"I don't like it and I don't like him but Steve, Tony's fine." Clint sighed. "Really, we have to start giving Loki the same benefit of the doubt we're giving Wanda. It's time to put personal feelings behind us." 

Steve gaped at him, he wasn't the only one. Tony couldn't believe she'd just heard those words come out of Barton's mouth, she glanced sideways at Loki who looked equally as surprised. 

They all stood regarding each other in a tense silence for a moment but Barton's words had seemed to settle the argument. 

"Ok well, not that this hasn't been a _lovely_ evening for me but, if you guys wanna leave now?" Tony lightheartedly but firmly asked the group. 

Barton wordlessly turned to leave, Nat gave her a half smile before leading Steve gently out of her room, with Loki following, until Steve stopped just before the doorway. 

"Wait." He mumbled. "The robot."

" _What_?" Tony asked, irritated he still wasn't leaving.

"There were three robots in the tower right?" Steve questioned.

"Yeah..." 

"You took out two and the bodies were in your workshop for a couple days right?" 

Tony froze as she realised what Steve was telling her before he actually said it. 

"Loki said he destroyed the other one, but where was the body?"

"Loki?" Tony asked almost hesitantly, turning towards him.

"I teleported the remains away." He answered easily, brushing the question off.

"But not the other two?" Steve pressed him.

"I had no desire to return to Starks workshop that day."

"And why was that?" Steve pressed again getting closer to Loki.

It was because of the kiss, Tony realised. After the bots had been destroyed they had kissed and Loki disappeared.

"I asked him not to." Tony blurted out. "Move the bots. I was going to see if I could trace the engineering to anywhere, but I couldn't trace it." 

"I don't buy it." 

Tony felt her eyebrow twitching in annoyance as she stared Steve down. This conversation had gone on way too long and her patience for the super soldier was fast running out.

"You know what Steve? I don't care if you don't buy it. I'm sick of going around in circles over this just because you aren't willing to accept that Loki isn't our enemy. Accept what I'm telling you or don't, either way, get out of my room."  

Natasha looked at her suspiciously but Steve seemed to finally deflate, stepping away from Loki again, he gave her one last hard look before storming out of her room. Natasha followed him after giving Tony a look that definitely said, " _We'll be talking about this later._ "

Tony took a deep breath and rolled back in her chair, closing her eyes. "And I suppose you'll be going as well?" She asked Loki, but when she opened her eyes again, he was already gone.

  

\-----------

 

It was about an hour before Natasha came back to her room. Tony hadn't bothered going to sleep, knowing the spy was coming. She just lay on her bed and waited. 

"So." Natasha started slowly. "We need to have a talk." 

"Not gonna lie Nat," Tony sighed, rolling over to face her, "I'm kinda tired of talking. Could this have not been delegated to an email or I don't know, a text?"

"Why were you lying?" 

Tony wasn't surprised, she would've been more shocked if Natasha hadn't realised she had lied. Still she wasn't exactly sure how to explain her actions. Maybe she was just sick of arguing with Steve, maybe she just wanted to be right about Loki changing, she wanted to believe so bad that he had. 

Still Steve's question nagged away at her. 

 _Where had the third robot gone?_  

"Tony." Natasha's hard voice cut into her thoughts. "I need to know that this situation is ok. I need to know if Steve's right."

"Right about what?" Tony challenged.

Natasha walked over to her bedside and stared at her for a few moments before breaking the silence again.

"Are you compromised?"

Tony held her gaze for a few more minutes before breaking and letting out a deep sigh. 

"God, Nat." She laughed without humour. "I don't even know." 

"Ok," Natasha sat almost gently down beside her, "Let's start from the top."

So Tony told her everything. Every interaction with Loki, Steve, the robots, the kiss, the second failed kiss. Her guilt at pushing Loki for more than he was clearly ready for. That she lied to just stop the argument, the fact that she didn't actually know what happened to the bot or if they could trust Loki on it, but she wanted to. Lastly she told her exactly what happened the night when her scar vanished. Afterwards they sat in silence again as Natasha sat staring away from Tony, clearly deep in thought, until finally. 

"Do you trust Loki?"

"No." Tony sighed. "But I want to."

Natasha stood up to leave, but Tony grabbed her hand to stop her.

"Well?" She asked. "What's the conclusion? Do you think I'm compromised."

"Worse." Nat said shrugging her off lightly. "I think you care."

 

\-----------

 

To say the next couple of days was tense would be an understatement. 

Everyone gathered together awkwardly to say goodbye to the Spies, Vision and Wanda. 

Clint was still standoffish with her, even as Tony handed over his new weapons. Vision gave what you could consider a warm goodbye from him, but it was still a bit too formal for Tonys liking. Wanda mostly just said her farewells to Steve, given that Thor still hadn't returned and they had never exactly been chummy. That left Natasha who surprisingly, gave her a quick tight hug before striding away towards the quinjet, with everyone else following after her. 

They were going to be observing and tracking the bots for at least two months, hopefully checking back with reports as often as they could. 

Tony sighed and wheeled out of the hanger before they even took off.

 

\-----------

 

The day after everyone left Tony wheeled herself through the tower and to Loki's room, she knocked on the door and waited.

And waited.

"FRIDAY, Is Loki in the tower?" She eventually asked after another few minutes of silence.

"Yes, he's in his room Boss."

"... Good to know." 

Tony knocked one more time and waited. 

"Loki?" She called out. "Look, I know you're in there."

She gave it a few more minutes, resting her head against his door, then left.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess I cursed myself when I said I'd try and post quicker, oh dear haha.  
> Seriously though I hope you can all forgive me for that, there was holidays and I've recently been busy with organising moving to another country (not fun) so updates may be quite inconsistent for a bit and I can only apologise and assure you all that I'm not by any means abandoning this!  
> Such a dramatic chapter, Steve is just desperate to hate Loki for something.  
> As always please leave a comment with any feedback you may have! And thank you so much for reading <3


	14. Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is getting sick of everyones bs

It had been a week since Team Super Spy had left. 

A long, awkward week. 

Between Loki and Steve, Tony wasn't sure who was making more of an effort to avoid her. Probably Steve, Loki just stayed out of the way in his room, he was never exactly an active member of their little avenger community anyway.

Steve though. 

Steve had actively run away from her when she'd entered the same room as him, twice now. Each time mumbling some half assed excuse before leaving. Tony just rolled her eyes and got on with her day, besides, it was her tower, she was never alone here.

"I've always got you right, FRIDAY?"

"Of course Boss."

"That's my girl."

 

\-----------

 

A few days into the second week Tony noticed something odd about her broken leg, it was distinctively not broken anymore. 

There had been a few times since the encounter with Hammer that she had simply forgotten about it, moving to stand before instantly buckling under her own weight and cursing that stupid non flying chair. This time however when she moved out of bed to stand she actually managed to walk for a few steps before falling.

"FRIDAY?"

"Yes Boss?"

"Where's Loki?"

"In his room Boss, as ever."

"Could you ask him to come see me please? Tell him it's urgent."

A few minutes passed by, which Tony spent tentatively poking her leg. 

"Sorry Boss, he says he's busy."

"Well you tell him he's a frosty little prick." Tony sighed. "Also call a doctor to the tower."

  

\----------- 

 

The Doctors diagnosis had been that her leg, seemingly, was almost healed. Tony still had to keep her weight off it as much as she could, but she didn't need the chair anymore as long as she had a crutch to lean on. The Doctor - Bay his name was - was of course baffled by this apparent medical marvel and wanted to take Tony back with him to the hospital to run further tests and scans but Tony turned the offer down straight away.  

"Ms Stark," Bay started reproachfully. "I don't think you realise just how-"

"Trust me." Tony cut him off. "I know just how amazing, unlikely, incredible this is. It's not the first time something crazy has happened to me. And I'm pretty sure I can figure out the cause of it without being dragged off to hospital."  

"If you would just let me run some tests..." 

"Sorry Doc, the answers no."

  

\-----------

 

Tony was 100% sure that Loki had something, or everything, to do with her sudden improvement in health but if he wasn't going to come see her then she'd be dammed if she was going to spend her time chasing him around the tower. Hobbling into the kitchen, she poked her leg a few more times before sitting down at the counter with a sigh.  

Ok, maybe she would have to go talk to him. 

He'd obviously found some new magical way of healing her... could he have gotten any of his powers back? If he had done then surely he would have left the tower by now, to go back to Asgard or literally anywhere else in the universe. 

"FRIDAY, where's Loki?" 

"In his room Boss, do you want me to tell you if that changes or are you going to keep asking?" 

Tony shot the general ceiling area a look. "Pretty sure I didn't program you to have such an attitude FRI."

"What can I say? You're a bad influence."

Tony couldn't help but feel a surge of affection for her AI but before she could reply to FRIDAYS statement, Thor wandered casually through the room to the fridge.

Seemingly having not seen her, Thor headed straight for the fridge, he dropped Mjolnir casually on the breakfast bar and proceeded to all but empty the fridge shelves before turning to head back out. 

"Hey Lightning McQueen." Tony gestured towards herself. "Do I not even get a hello before you raid _my_ fridge?"

"Oh," Thor whipped his head around guiltily and smiled sheepishly over at her. "Lady Stark, my apologies, I was distracted by thoughts of food."  

"Yeah, yeah." Tony rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "You've got that whole twitterpated thing going on so I guess I'll give you a pass, you might want to tone it down before you totally ruin the whole sullen tower vibe we've got going on though." 

"I, erm... No, you lost me."

"How was Jane?"

"Oh!" Thor's confusion cleared as he beamed to himself. "Jane is... good. I returned this morning as she will be working very hard these coming days and couldn't afford any distractions."

"You dog." Tony laughed. "Well at least someone's happy around here."  

Thor frowned for a moment. "What did I miss?"

"The spies took Vis and Wanda away on a super cool mission, Steve is avoiding me because he thinks I was, um, _compromised_ by your darling brother," Tony listed off, "Oh and speaking of Frosty, he's been avoiding me as well. I'm also pretty sure he-" 

Tony abruptly cut herself off before she could finish. 

 _I'm also pretty sure he has his powers back_. 

Thor gave her a quizzical look as she frowned at herself.

"Tony? What about Loki?" 

"I'll talk to you about it later Point Break, I've got to figure some stuff out first." She said decidedly, and despite Thor looking like he wanted to push her for an answer she knew he wouldn't. Instead he settled next to her at the breakfast bar and started digging in to his food mountain.  

People never gave Thor enough credit, Tony thought absently, staring at him. He wasn't dumb, he was actually pretty smart at picking up social cues, he clearly knew she was worried about something so he was staying with her, but he wasn't about to force her into talking to him.  

Certain people could stand to be a bit more like Thor. 

Speaking of certain people, Steve suddenly strode confidently into the kitchen, stopping at the other side of the bar. 

"Tony, we need to talk." He told her firmly before turning to Thor. "Alone, please."  

Thor raised an eyebrow at Steve before glancing sideways at Tony, who gave a small nod in response, it was only after that that he stood to leave. 

When Thor had left the room Steve slid awkwardly into his spot at the counter. 

"Look Tony," Steve started sternly before quickly deflating, "I'm sorry." 

"...Ok." 

"I realise I've not exactly been fair, to you or..." He fidgeted with an apple Thor had left behind. "Or to Loki." 

"Oh?" Tony snorted. "And when did we come to this unbelievably astute conclusion?" 

Steve sighed and stood up, pacing around the kitchen.  

"I was jealous. When I saw you two and... and perhaps I came to an unfair conclusion." Steve continued to face around the room, looking anywhere but at her. "I just, got so-" 

"Dickish?" Tony supplied, crossing her arms. 

"...Dickish." Steve finally stopped pacing. "It hurt, seeing you with him, especially with him. When I wish you'd be with, well, you know how I feel." 

"Steve despite the fact that _nothing_ is going on between me and Loki, you and me... we wouldn't work. You know we're too different." 

"Opposites attract." 

"That's magnets not people." 

Steve chuckled before sitting down beside her again.

"You're one of my only links left to the past." He told her quietly, although it sounded more like a confession. "Peggy's all but gone, Howard was my friend, Bucky..." 

"You know the main reason I hated you was because of my Dad, right?" Tony cut him off bitterly. "You were all he ever talked about, he spent years looking for you. You were dead and I was alive but I was never good enough. Couldn't help but resent you a bit. But In some weird way I still looked up to you, you were the greatest man my Dad had ever known after all. 

And then I meet you, and you didn't even know me but I knew you. It's not just that I read every SHIELD file on you, researched every bit of data I could find on the super duper soldier serum, or even that I saw the archived footage of you in the war. I knew you from all the stories I heard from good ol' Dad, all the comparisons that he ever made between us. ' _Captain Rogers wouldn't do that Antonia;"_ Tony laughed bitterly. "Did you even know anything about me before you decided I only fight for myself? Tell me honestly Steve, how much research did you do before coming to that conclusion?" 

"I..." Steve frowned in concentration. "I read some of SHIELDS debriefing files."  

"And that's why we wouldn't work." Tony told him flatly. 

They sat in silence for a bit before Steve spoke up again.  

"But you and Loki... You think that would work?" 

"Cap-" 

"I'm not-" Steve struggled with his words for a bit. "I'm not saying that you can't be with who you want, ok? You should be happy. But all I can ever see when I look at Loki is him standing over those people in Germany, Coulsons blood, those crazy blue eyes-" 

"Wait." Tony cut in suddenly. "What did you just say?" 

"Crazy blue eyes?" 

That was wrong, Tony thought. Loki's eyes weren't blue, they were green, she knew that for a fact.  

During the invasion, when Clint was compromised, when Selvig was compromised, their eyes were the tell. They were blue.

"Tony?" Steve shook her arm gently. 

"Loki's eyes are green." She told him whipping around excitedly. 

"What...?" 

"His eyes! They aren't blue Steve! That means-" 

"That means his mind was not his own." Thor rumbled darkly from the doorway of the room. 

"First of all, listening in? Rude." Tony grumbled. 

"My brother, he never wanted the throne, all he ever wanted..." Thor trailed off, looking troubled.  

"How did you not notice?" Tony questioned him sharply, her harsh tone made Steve raise an eyebrow but he too looked expectantly at Thor, clearly wanting the same answers she did. 

"A part of me did think he did not seem quite himself, he was too irrational." Thor replied slowly. "I had assumed he was simply consumed with rage towards me and this planet, I thought he was lashing out at the Earth because he was being spiteful... I never stopped to think there could be another reason for his madness." 

"This... Changes things." Steve said lowly. 

"Are you kidding me? This changes everything!" Tony made to get up from her seat before stopping herself, wobbling in mid air. 

She still hadn't mentioned her miraculous almost recovery.  

Luckily for her, the ever chivalrous Captain America instantly moved to help her. Steading her from behind before helping her into the chair she didn't need anymore. 

"Tony, try to remember you're injured." He said sternly, but not unkindly. 

She chuckled awkwardly instead of responding and wheeled out of the room. 

Enough was enough, she had to talk to Loki. 

 

\-----------

 

"Loki!" Tony shouted as she pounded on his door. "I swear to God, I'll blast this door down! I know you can hear me you little shit!" 

She paused and pressed her ear against the door, listening for any sign of movement. 

"Fine!" Tony furiously grabbed the door handle and tried to open it. "FRIDAY, override the bedroom lock." 

"Done." 

Tony pushed up out of her chair and against the door, opening it and angrily limping into Loki's room to find it... 

Empty. 

Her eyes darted frantically around, looking for any sign of the trickster. The place barley even looked lived in, the only sign of Loki's presence was the assortment of knives embedded in the wall opposite his bed. Tony hobbled over to examine them, pulling one out the wall, clenching her jaw and wincing at the hole it left behind. No one took care of her tower she thought distantly as she tried to make sense of the situation. 

"FRIDAY... Where is Loki?"  

"In his room Boss." 

Well, that clearly wasn't the case. 

"Show me. I want video access to the security camera set up here. Show me Loki." 

The TV on the wall flickered to life, showing the room, Tony standing staring at the screen and Loki, laying down on the bed and gazing vacantly at the ceiling.  

Tony whipped round and stared at the very empty bed. Suddenly feeling more than just annoyed. She was angry.

 Throwing the dagger in her hand as hard as she could, she watched as it flew across the room and imbedded itself right where Loki should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I sat on this chapter for ages, I kept rewriting it and reworking it and I'm still not thrilled but it's been two months now so yeahhhh  
> As always, thank you so much for reading! Please leave any and all feedback you have in the comments, I read every one and they give me life! And I'll try and get the next chapter out a lot sooner! xx


	15. Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is learning to pick her battles.

"FRIDAY, pull up any and all security footage of Loki."

The TV screen in front of her lit up with the very first footage of Loki in the tower as she sat down on Loki's bed to watch.

She watched as Thor rainbow beamed down onto the balcony and strode confidently into the tower with Loki in tow, went straight into the kitchen and was immediately confronted by Clint.

Pissed off as she was, Tony couldn't help but half smile exasperatedly at Thor. Of course he just wandered in with a criminal and hoped for the best, she actually felt herself smile again when she saw Loki simply ignore the archer and open the fridge.

"Ok, we might need to speed through this a bit... show me the times he's in his room."

"Not sure how much that'll help Boss, he's here a lot."

"Yeah except he isn't." Tony ran her hand through her hair and thought for a second. "OK go though the footage and pull up any that match how he was earlier today. Y'know just lying there space cadeting."

After half a minute about 30 different video clips popped up in front of her. Tony sighed.

There was definitely a pattern. Loki would be going about his business fairly normally then there was a distinctive shimmer to the whole video and suddenly he's laying down in bed, staring at nothing.

"Ok FRI, we're gonna have to give you an anti-magic upgrade apparently." Tony groaned.

She couldn't believe how naive she'd been. Of course Loki had been lying, he'd left the tower at least 30 times. Tony had just assumed he couldn't touch FRIDAY, he couldn't use magic on people... but FRIDAY wasn't technically a person.

Stupid loopholes.

Tony glanced back at the screen and one of the clips caught her eye. Loki was in his typical fake lying on the bed pose when he suddenly appeared next to the bed as well looking alarmed. He waved his hand as the illusion on the bed disappeared and he left the room.

"FRIDAY, where did he go after that?"

The footage changed to Thor and Loki's communal space. Tony could see herself clearly trying to climb onto the sofa but failing miserably. Ah, she realised. This was the night she got drunk with Thor.

"What on Earth are you doing? Where's Thor?" On screen Loki was asking her.

"He made my chair fly for me then... Jane?" She heard herself slur back at him and groaned at herself. How much had she even drank that night?

Loki turned to leave, then stopped and turned back to her. "You cannot rest here, idiot." He told her, if Tony wasn't mistaken there was almost some fondness in his voice as he insulted her.

Loki effortlessly picked her up and started to carry her to his room, when he stopped again, looking conflicted. He stood holding her for another minute before turning and heading to Thor's room instead.

Tony stopped the footage, she knew the rest.

Breathing deeply, she closed her eyes and lay back on Loki's bed. This was a mess.

"Well, this is not something I expected to return to."

Tony opened her eyes to find Loki standing over her with a confident grin.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of finding you in my bed, Lady Stark?" He asked her silkily.

A wave of anger crashed over Tony again as she sat back up straight. "Where have you been?"

"Training." Loki lied easily, still smiling.

"Don't bullshit me." She bit out at him. "I know you left the tower."

Loki looked slightly taken aback but quickly recovered. "Indeed, I left to train."

"Right. Ok. Yeah. And when did you get your powers back again?"

Loki's smile dropped fully and his face became more dangerous. "And what makes you think I have reacquired my powers?"

Tony stared up at Loki challengingly before standing upright and gesturing to her leg.

"Ah."

"Did you think I wasn't gonna notice something like this?" Tony asked him, voice raised.

"I may have miscalculated my spell." Loki said nonchalantly before breezing past her to the other side of the room.

"Miscalculated?" Tony asked incredulously.

"It was only supposed to excel your healing slightly, perhaps make it so you didn't scar." Loki stepped forward as if to examine the leg but stopped when Tony took an equal step back.

"So I was your guinea pig?" Tony bit out.

Loki didn't answer, he didn't have to.

"How did you get them back, what was the great redemptive deed?"

Loki shot her a strange look before laughing.

"Redemptive deed? You think The All-Father gave them back to me?" He continued laughing without any humour. It was pissing Tony off.

"Well that was the deal wasn't it?" She gestured wildly. "You be a good little boy and daddy gives you your toys back?"

"There was no deal." Loki snarled. "Only a trick. I would never find redemption here because I would only be doing something Odin deems good in order to be redeemed. Making it a selfish act on my part and not worthy of reward."

"Then what." Tony asked thickly. "What did you do."

"I believe that is none of your business." Loki answered her snidely.

"It's my business." She said hotly, storming over to him. "When I'm being lied to."

Loki's eyes flicked from her face to the knife embedded in his pillow.

"Oh is that it?" He sneered down at her. "Hurt your feelings did I? Wound your pride? Honestly Stark, I clearly give you too much credit. Why would you ever trust me not to lie to you? Don't you know what I'm the God of?"

"Leather and hair gel wasn't it?' Tony snarked back. "I thought you were my... I thought you wanted to be part of the team."

"I want nothing to do with this miserable planet or the insects that crawl across it." Loki hissed, marching forwards and looming over her. "I thought I made it very clear in New York that I would gladly stomp on every one of you."

"You know, I think you give _yourself_ too much credit Rudolph. You're not as good of a liar as you think you are."

"How so?" Loki muttered darkly, staring down intently at her.

"Your eyes are green." Tony answered simply.

Those green eyes of his widened almost comically, he took a step back before turning fully away from her and sitting on the edge of the bed, after a beat Tony slowly joined him, her anger from earlier slowly ebbing away.

"Want to talk about it?" She ventured.

"Not particularly."

They sat together in silence for a few minutes.

"Look." Tony started. "You and I both know I can't stop you from doing basically anything you want to do and frankly it would be a waste of my time to try. But if you want to stay here, in my tower, you gotta play by my rules. I need to know where you're going until you give me a reason to trust you when you leave."

"And is that the only rule?" Loki questioned, glancing at her out the corner of his eye.

"Never use magic on me without my permission again or I'll blast your ass out the tower myself."

"In fairness." Loki said half smiling. "You did ask me to heal your leg."

Well, he had her there. Loopholes.

"So... What's the deal with your powers now?" Tony asked, not fully sure if he would answer.

"Your planet is home to multiple users of magic, it is..." Loki made a face. "Primitive and unlike my own, but I can learn to use it until I can fully access my own power fully again."

"So there are different types of magic?" Tony questioned, suddenly much more interested. "Earth has wizards? Is it like Hogwarts? Can anyone learn? Who's teaching you?"

"Of course, just as there are different languages or sciences. One branch of magic is completely different to another." Loki explained, hints of enthusiasm in his voice. "I'm not sure what a Hogwarts is but not everyone has the capability to learn fully, especially on this planet, but most can pick up a few tricks... I would rather not divulge where I am learning."

At the look on Tonys face he quickly expanded.

"He is rather secretive and very..." Loki sighed deeply. " _Irksome_. He fancies himself some grand sorcerer."

Something about this explanation rubbed Tony up the wrong way, but if wizards didn't want to be in the public eye, that's probably exactly why she didn't know about them. Still the thought of Loki going to an unknown place to meet with an unknown, and apparently very powerful, man unsettled her. Looking at Loki she realised this was her first true test, she had to decide to trust him and she still wasn't sure if she could.

"Could I meet him?" She ventured.

"I think so. In time."

She searched Loki's face, he didn't seem like he was lying when he said that, there was no hesitation when he replied. But still...

"I don't want you leaving the tower to see him without an escort again." She said firmly.

Loki sent her a sideways glance, looking mildly annoyed but not surprised. A few tense moments passed before he nodded an agreement at her and Tony had an internal sigh of relieve.

"So anyway, you're telling me I could be a wizard?" Tony jumped up, wobbling a bit on her bad leg still, but wanting to put the tenseness of the moment behind them as fast as she could. "You have to teach me!"

Loki looked up at her surprised before a genuine grin broke out across his face.

"I may try to teach you, but do not be disappointed if you cannot learn." He told her gently but firmly. "Now be still, let me fully heal you... With your permission of course."

Tony nodded her permission, then watched intently as Loki took hold of her leg with both hands and concentrated. His hands seemed to glow a faint orange colour and her leg heated up, not uncomfortably, before a feeling of pins and needles spread across her body and Loki let go again frowning.

"I think that should have done it, we'll find out soon."

"Ok, well while we're waiting." Tony said, eagerly dropping back down on the bed beside him again. "Teach me."

They stayed up together for the rest of the night with Loki running her through the basics of magic, specifically his - which seemed to be a mixture of what he had learned from his mother and what came naturally from his nature as a frost giant. Most asguardians had a natural affinity for magical powers of some sort but most preferred to train with weapons, something Tony couldn't understand.

"Why use a sword when magic is right there?!" She exclaimed to a highly amused Loki. "I don't understand your people at all."

"Not my people." Loki said lowly, smile slipping from his face. "Magical prowess was not something to be admired, it was seen as rather dishonourable to win at battle by tricking an opponent."

"Not your fault your opponents were dumb." Tony grumbled.

"Quite." Loki agreed quietly, small smile returning. "It is getting late, perhaps you should leave."

It was getting late, Tony had been lying fully on Loki's bed for a few hours now, slowly wrapping herself in more blankets and had been furiously fighting off sleep for the past half hour at least.

It was only because she was so tired, she reasoned as she curled tighter into the sheets, that the next thing she said was. "I don't want to."

Loki gazed down at her intently before lowering himself down on the bed to lie stretched out beside her.

"I suppose I could test my power and try to simply teleport you out of here."

"Is that what you want to do?" She asked, genuinely curious.

"You're taking up the bed." Loki replied in a non-answer.

"Do it then." Tony mumbled before closing her eyes.

"No."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I conveyed well enough that Tony still isn't happy or fully trusting of Loki but more willing to just let certain things go or put a pin in them till later... I don't know  
> anywaaaay as always comment and tell me what you liked or didn't like, all feedback is very helpful to me and I adore reading it! Thank you all so much xx


	16. Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Tony chit chat

When Tony woke up the next morning the first thing she noticed was that, to her relief, she hadn't managed to drape herself across Loki again. It was already embarrassing enough she’d refused to leave last night, it didn't need to be any more awkward than that, thankfully she’d woken up facing away from him. 

Rolling around to her other side her face brushed gently up against Loki, she glanced up to see him smirking back down at her and she sighed. 

Well, at least they weren't cuddling.

“You snore.” Loki told her pointedly.

“I do not.” Tony grumbled back, trying to sound more offended then tired.

“Literally loud enough to wake a god.”

“You’re not a god, you’re…” Tony gestured for a bit before giving up lamely. “Mean.”

Loki raised an eyebrow at her.

“What? I’m _tired_. Use your newly acquired powers and magic me some coffee.” Tony stretched out and fought against the urge to roll back over to sleep again. “Then there’s no way I could question your divinity.” 

Said God in question simply rolled his eyes and went back what he’d apparently been doing before she’d woken up, which was throwing a dagger into the air and catching it again,Tony noted it was the one she’d thrown at the bed yesterday and rolled  her head to look at the gash she’d left there.

“I hope the pillow was a worthy adversary for you before you cut its life so tragically short.” Loki deadpanned, when Tony looked up though she could see a small smile starting to play across his lips.

“Eh, it had it coming, it’ll serve as a warning to all the other bedding.” She watched him throw the dagger around for another minute.

“Can you hurt people now then?” Tony asked him. “With your magic back and all.”

Loki sighed, continuing to throw the dagger higher and higher. “I told you, it isn't _back_ I'm learning a new branch of magic.”

“Sooo… you can’t hurt anyone with _your_ magic. Specifically just yours?”

Loki stopped throwing the dagger and just caught it, rolling in the bed to face her he slowing held it out towards her, stopping the point just before the skin of her exposed shoulder. Looking up from the knife to her before gently pressing it forwards and… 

Nothing.

As soon as it was supposed to touch her skin it simply shimmered away.

“I can’t hurt anyone with _my_ magic.” He told her softly, before standing up abruptly and walking away from the bed. “But for the sake of transparency, yes. I do believe I could use my new learnings to cause physical harm, although I haven't tested it yet.”  
  
Tony sighed dramatically and got up of the bed to follow him. “Go on then, I’ll take one for the team.” She held out her arm.

“You’re serious?” Loki asked slowly. 

“I am a woman of science, I’m always up for an experiment.” She told him cheekily. “Also to be honest, I need to know what level of danger you are and I’d rather you tested on me than anyone else.”  
  
“I could break your neck. I don’t need magic to be dangerous.” Loki muttered, it almost seemed like he was pouting.  
  
“A lot of people could break my neck, you’re not special pal.”  
  
“Hold still then.” Loki reached out and gently took her arm in one hand steadying it before he let go again, doing some short but complicated hand movement his hands started to glow the same faint orange from last night before he pointed suddenly and a small bolt of what looked like lightning shot out and hit her. 

“Ah!” Tony yelpedt as she instinctively jumped back. “Well that stings like a bitch.”

She looked over to Loki who was staring distastefully at his hand. “ _Lightning._ ”  

“Guessing we’re not laughing at the irony?” She grinned as Loki shot her a look. “What? _I_ was the one who got shocked. Not you.”  

“Well at least you can be rest assured in your knowledge that I'm _dangerous._ ” He mimicked her voice.  

Choosing to ignore him Tony walked away from the God and around the room, stoping in front of the wall of various knifes and daggers that had been thrown there.   
  
Reaching out she touched the blade of one curiously, only for it to shimmer away instantly. 

“Did you create all of these?” She asked absentmindedly, reaching out to touch others and watching them disappear beneath her finger tips. 

“Not all of them.” Loki told her just as she firmly poked the still visible edge of one and instead of vanishing it actually cut her instead. 

“Why aren't you blue?” She asked suddenly, whipping around to face him and finding he was much closer than before. 

Loki was silent behind her for a few moments, long enough for Tony to start to worry she’d really pushed the wrong buttons, but then he answered. 

“My other form is revealed when I’m in direct contact with a Jötunn or Jötunn artefact, such as the Casket of Ancient Winters-“  
  
“The glowy ice box?”

“- sure.” Loki looked away slightly uncomfortably. “The glamour is Odins magic, woven into my skin, I never sensed it because it had been there as long as I could remember. Once I discovered the truth I could feel it clearly running through me, but only when I took the time to think about it.” 

“Like when you think too hard about breathing?”  

“Exactly.” Loki sighed. “I have the power to remove the glamour myself of course, it isn't permanent, but I just…”  
  
“Hate it?” Tony questioned softly.

Loki dragged his eyes back to stare down into her own.  
  
_God_ , Tony thought suddenly, she sure could get lost in those eyes. 

Staring into them she felt like she could finally actually see Loki. Rage and resignation, defiance and despair, arrogance and self loathing. He looked so openly down at her. Tony almost scoffed at herself, how could she have even been mad at Thor for not noticing when the rest of them didn't, how could anyone not have noticed this deep green wasn't the same unnatural blue during New York. In fact… she searched his face, everything was different, no one should have been able to confuse this Loki in front of her for the one that so casually tossed her out of a window.  

The truth was simply that none of them could be bothered to really _look_. They needed a villain, the thought that Loki didn't act on his own… That a greater power was controlling him the whole time…

A unwelcome flash of the vision she saw when Wanda stuck her fingers in her brain came to mind.  
  
_“You could have saved us.”_

She backed away suddenly from Loki, those eyes following her retreat with a look of concern. 

_“Why didn't you do more?”_  

Tony dropped to her knees, heart pounding.  
  
“Stark?” 

She couldn't breathe.  
  
“ _Stark!?_ ”  
  
Oh God.

“TONY?”

There was hands on her shoulders, Loki. He was right there.

“What do I do?” He grabbed her hands desperately. “Tony, what’s wrong?”  
  
“The Boss is having a panic attack.” FRIDAY informed him. “They happen sometimes when she is feeling particularly anxious or her PTSD is triggered.”  
  
“I don't know what that means!” Loki shouted up at the ceiling.  
  
“I can ride it out.” Tony told him lowly through deep breaths. “Just…”  
  
“Yes??” 

“…Hold me.” 

Loki instantly sat beside her, wrapping his arms carefully around her and pulling her gently into his body, she could feel his heartbeat and she tried to focus on that. 

“It’s ok,” he told her gently. “It’s ok.” 

They stayed that way for what could have been hours, but Tony knew it was only really minutes, until she finally felt her own heart rate slow and her breathing normalise. She let out a long breath and lent back fully against Loki, relaxing into him. He in turn wrapped his arms more securely around her and rested his head on top of hers, after another moment or two passed he started quietly muttering to her about magic, random bits of information about tricks or spells that she wasn't really fully even taking in, but his voice was soothing none the less. It wasn't until he started talking about pocket dimensions that she snapped back to herself.  

“Show me?” She half asked half demanded of him.

  
  
—————- 

 

“There are infinite universes and dimensions all stacked next to each other,” Loki explained to her again. “It’s just a simple case of finding the right one,” he moved his hands slowly, “poking through to it and finding what you need.” This time a heavy book suddenly appeared in his hands and Tony felt like she might just hit him with it.  
  
“I know you know you’re not explaining this right.”  
  
Loki sighed dramatically and started again. “Universes…”  
  
“ _I know_! I know about universes! I’m a genius!” Instead of the book she half heartedly hit him with a pillow as he laughed at her. “Explain the magic Bambi or I swear to God I’ll -“  
  
“Ok, ok.” He laughed as he made placative gestures with his hands. “It’s just a simple case of…” His hands quickly made an intricate movement and suddenly he was holding a large square shield, which he promptly hid behind as Tony threw the pillow straight at him.  
  
“Ah I see it can still withstand the most brutal of attacks.” Loki said, mock seriously inspecting it for damage. “Perhaps I could lend it to the good Captain if he should ever tire of his dinner plate.”

“I hate you.” She told him, trying to look annoyed despite her grin. “Ok, well since you're clearly not revealing _these_ secrets anytime soon… I think it’s time we go talk to the team.” 

Loki frowned ever so slightly and vanished the shield back to wherever it came from. 

“They need to know about your powers.” Tony clarified, even though she was sure she didn't need to. 

“I suppose we could tell them-”  
  
“We’re telling them the truth.” She cut in firmly. “The whole truth and nothing but the truth… And really when I say me I mean _you_.”  
  
At the look Loki shot her she continued again.  
  
“Trust is a must now ok? And you need to be the one to build some bridges, I cant just stand there and vouch for you. I need to have something to vouch for, ok?”  
  
His face was unreadable for a beat.  
  
“Ok.”   
  
A pause.  
  
“What made you react that way earlier?” He asked carefully.  
  
Tony stilled.  
  
“When I went through that portal in New York…” She struggled for a bit. “And later the witc- _Wanda_ kinda messed with my head… I just need to be ready, need to be better. The best I can be, and I'm not there yet… and it frightens me. The thought that it wasn't you, not really anyway…”

Loki moved forward and carefully placed a hand on her arm.

“I understand.” He murmured softly.  
  
Tony locked eyes with him again and felt her heartbeat quicken, she was sure Loki could hear it the way it was pounding away in her chest, so she pulled away.  
  
“Let’s go see the team.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snuck my favourite Vine in there, who caught it?
> 
> Hope you like this chapter, please comment letting me know what you think! (also any mistakes I've made, honestly you guys are life savers with that stuff haha)
> 
> I won't make any promises on when the next chapter is coming, but don't worry, it is coming! I just have a lot of stuff going on at the moment, but I love writing this and reading your feedback <3

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first ever fic, I know there are problems with it and I appreciate any constructive feedback you have for me!  
> Thank you so much for reading! I really hope you enjoy my fic :) xxx


End file.
